


Angeli Sanguis III - Proelium

by YueShirosaki



Series: Angeli Sanguis [3]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Drama, Homosexuality, M/M, Romance, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-16 14:26:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 38
Words: 42,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16087955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YueShirosaki/pseuds/YueShirosaki
Summary: Part 3 of 4:With the world saved twice by one man and his clan, one should think peace has come. Far from it. Hell broke loose for the Vampires and all that are with them. Will they be able to turn the table again?





	1. 1

 

_Peace._

_Such a small word, with so much meaning._  
But in truth, it's just empty.  
We never should have believed there would be any peace.  
Shouldn't have shown ourselves so openly.  
Now, I know better.  
Now after I lost everything.

_Again._

_It wasn't so long after we defeated my Father, welcomed Rukia in our Family and accompanied her to her wedding with Ulquiorra._  
Everything was great, quiet, peaceful.  
But the storm was coming, slowly, silently, like a rising tide.  
V.A.S.T. was everywhere, we came without being called, like the FBI.  
No one knew what we did, where we got our information or the authority to take special cases from the normal Police.  
Of course the officers started questioning their chiefs, and they the higher ups, up to the government.  
But even them knew only the least they had to.

_So some genius in the USA picked someone from the street, who had been involved some time prior._  
How I loathe these idiots.  
Every cop knows what happens to a junkie when they don't get their dope.  
Just, that guy was worse than a human junkie.

_He was a Vampire, class Insane, stage 2._  
You won't starve these guys longer than 2 days, when you know.  
Since they didn't, they made the biggest mistake, ever.  
Word spread like wildfire.  
Everywhere they sought us, hunted us down like livestock.  
Even normal people who lived with us were killed.  
So the witch-hunt was re-invented.

_They found our blood banks, well not all yet._  
Our homes, bars, meeting places, everything where our life went on.  
Even the V.A.S.T. offices were run over.  
The Tower...even that is but a ruin.  
We fought as long as we could, but the councils broke apart, everyone is on his own.

_Ichigo always was at the front lines, no bullet could harm him with his incredibly evolved healing abilities._  
But they found our weakness, holy water.  
Of course I didn't think it would work on my beloved, since he's still half a child of Gabriel, but I was wrong.  
He got struck by one of these bullets, after he had to see how his daughter and her husband got executed.  
It didn't kill him, but since then he's in a deep sleep.  
I try to cleanse his blood each and every day, but it won't change at all.

_Very soon after that, they sniffed out our home._  
Ichigo and me weren't there, I brought him to a safer place and were at his side that day.  
When I got back, the last I saw was Grimmjow in rage, who teared up a lot of the humans.  
In the End they shot him down.  
Next to his corpse, lay the other two, Shinji and Stark.  
I don't know what happened next, but when I came to I was the last one standing in a pool of blood.  
No one of my clan survived, only Ichigo is still there and as much as I want him to wake up, as much I hope he never will.

_History never changes, only our weapons do._  
So we repeat the old fight once again.  
As long as I last, I will protect Ichigo from them.  
Maybe he'll save us once and for all.  
Maybe it's already to late, and we are the last ones of our race.  
But as long as I am the last one standing, it's not over.  
For my Ichigo, it's me against the world.

_I am_

_in_

_War_

Chapter 1

End


	2. 2

_In the year 2525_  
If man is still alive  
if woman can survive  
they may -

"Graaah!"

A crashing sound echoes through empty halls, as a radio had been thrown against a wall and now splits all over the ground, into tiny plastic and metal fragments.  
Shiro was furious, frustrated and sad.  
He put on this radio just once, to listen to the only left over transmitter in all Japan and they play this.  
The albino knew damn well whom he had to thank for this.  
It was _this_ man, the man who was to blame for all of it.  
That man knew that there weren't many of Shiros kin left who still had enough mind to even use a radio.  
He wanted to rile Shiro up, make him become incautious and get him.  
But Shiro wouldn't fall for such a cheap trick.

Yes, it's the year 2525 and humanity survived, something that can't be said for sure for the Vampires.  
This war lasted for five years already and it wasn't finished yet.  
Shiro was the last of his clan that was still alive.  
First he had put up two gravestones on his old mansion ground, soon after the war broke out.  
Gravestones Ichigos sunshine Rukia and her husband Ulquiorra.   
Then not long after he put Starrk and Grimmjow to rest, right next to them.   
Shinji disappeared somewhere after a short battle.   
Shiro never found his body, but he guessed that he also was gone,  so he put a tomb for him with the others. 

"Five years already..."  
Shiro mumbled to himself.

Sometime along the way he had asked himself, if that angel Gabriel had abandoned his old children, after they sided with the Vampires, for a better future, and made some new ones, out of the best suited humans.  
Nobody even thought that this damn maniac might still have his fingers in it, or even to still have the interest to eradicate Lucifer's children from the face of earth.  
Everything had been going so well.  
This peace had been treacherous.

_Beep._._._._._._._._ beep_ __._._._._._._._._ _ beep_

Shiro turned his attention back to the machine that was connected to his mate.  
After Ichigo had been hit by one of these poisonous bullets he had been in a coma.  
His pulse was so weak, it was a touch-and-go whether he barely stayed alive or died.  
All Shiro could do since these five years, was nourish his body with what it needed most.

 **Blood**.

Just for that, he put himself in danger over and over again.  
There were but few blood stores left that he could use and people who help Vampires were even less, so he often had just one option to get what was needed.

 **Hunting**.

But Shiro was the number one on the wanted list of, the so called _new hunters_ , since they thought he was the big boss of the Vampires.  
He was chased like a fox on the hunt.  
The albino often changed his hideouts, so that the _new hunters_ wouldn't find out where he hid Ichigo.  
Shiro hated it, always being on the run, he hated this ever lasting war, the destroyed city, the cries of his kin when the _hunters_ eradicated another hideout.  
It was terrifying and nerve wrecking.

Shiro heard of a place where he could flee to.  
Their all-father Byakuya was said to be the top notch in this country and that he made a fool of the other warring countries, by always reporting that there were no incidents and to keep it like that, he isolated the whole state.  
In secret he let fugitive Vampires into the country.  
It's a small paradise in the east of Europe.  
But Shiro couldn't go there, not with Ichigo in this condition.

He didn't know why the orangette wouldn't wake up.  
It couldn't be the poison, that had been cleansed out of his system after two long years.  
Maybe he had fallen into a thousand-year sleep, if that really existed.  
Even among noble Vampires this had always been a myth.  
If it really was like that, could Shiro hide themselves for another 995 years?

"Ichigo please wake up already."  
Shiro begged his mate and a tear rolled down his cheek as he thought on.  
' _or do your last breath and I'll follow you._ '

Chapter 2  
End  
______  
  
The song text at the beginning is from Simon and Garfunkel (2525). I just used it for the stories sake and have no profit from it.


	3. 3

Shiro had to change the IV bottle once again.  
Since he couldn't use human blood, he drew it om himself.  
He always went to the brink of death for it, because he took so much and everytime afterwards he had to fill himself up again.  
Therefor he needed to find a willing victim, of course he easily could have manipulated someone and erased his memories afterwards, but the teachings of his father sat deep, never mind how he had changed in the end.  
Shiro went to the fridge and fetched a bottle, it was the last.

"Again?"  
He sighed  
So he exchanged the bottles and then sat himself in a chair and put a catheter in his armlet to draw his blood.  
It took about an hour until he finally filled four bottles, which was about two liters worth of his blood.  
The albino felt a bit dizzy when he put them away.  
Drowsy and hungry would be more accurate.

Before he left though he checked Ichigos state one last time.  
Everything was normal, if you wanted to put it like that.  
Shiro slowly went outside, he thought that he must look like a drunkard since he staggered while walking.

It was night already and so almost no one roamed the streets, that didn't make finding someone to feast on much easier.  
Somewhere around the old nightclub district might be some teens hanging out.  
The vampire headed to this direction and there really were some people, even one of the clubs defied the destruction and loud music echoed out to street.

In a badly lit corner stood a young woman, he could smell her from afar and his fangs began to sting into his underlip.  
The hunger drove him towards her, but then the alarms in his head went off.  
He couldn't forget about _the hunters_ , they had spies everywhere.  
Shiro looked around, the girl stood much to secluded and still was being watched by a few others.  
He changed directions, to the club.  
Unbelievable that he lost felt for that cheap trap.

The albino checked the club, there weren't any guests and also no security cams.  
He sat down at the bar and ordered a drink.  
Time passed, another two glasses of coke later he headed for the toilets.  
Shiro went to the disabled cabin and each time someone passed by, he led them in there and took just a bit blood of them until he was full.  
He went back and ordered one last drink to make himself less suspicious.

"You were in there for some time buddy. Everything alright?"  
The barkeeper asked him as he served his glass.  
"Had to take a dump."  
"You weren't there when I checked for crack-heads."  
"Took the special one. Needed my space."  
"Sure."  
The bartender polished a glass and looked at Shiro from the corner of his eyes.  
"Is that blood on your mouth?"  
"Oh, Yea. I think I bit myself by accident."  
 _'SHIT!'_  
"Uh-huh."  
The keeper moved his hand under the bar and Shiro reacted, he tried to get into the guys mind and manipulate him, but it wouldn't work.

He frowned.

"Wat'cha doin' ? Have a secret alarm down there for them guys who're after those mutants?"  
"Maybe. You know what? Media's full of a guy who's supposed to be the boss of those beasts. Nothing in detail, just that he shall be a very pale guy. You get me?"  
"So the first one you see is obviously suspicious."  
Finally Shiro broke the barriers and let the man forget everything.  
"Let me tell you something. I'm albino and you won't see me twice."  
Shiro drank the last sip of his coke and left the bar, just as some men in uniform rushed in.  
His hunch had been right.

"What's going on here?"  
Secretly he bit himself.  
"I work here, my boss suddenly attacked me on the toilets, he's one of these things! Here look!"  
He showed the bitemark.  
The uniformed took the barkeeper, disaster broke out and Shiro sneaked into the night.  
Since the barkeeper was human, nothing would happen to him , he supposed.  
What did he care even.  
He had to save Ichigos and his own skin.  
One human more or less didn't matter.

He told himself so, but still felt like the worst.

Chapter 3  
END


	4. 4

Shiro was back at the hideout.  
He took care of Ichigo, then sat down and drew another liter of his blood, just to be sure he had enough stored.  
The albino would have drawn more, but he already started to feel dizzy again, maybe because of the stress before.  
So for his own safety he stopped for now.  
Shiro stored the conserves, went to Ichigo and gave him a kiss.  
"There's enough for the next week now."  
He was tired, maybe he should take a short nap.  
The vampire moved to an other room to sleep.

Elsewhere, the officers of the 'anti-vampire police' who had been at the bar, were at the main station to report to the captain, Cang Du.  
He was a tall man, with short black hair, steel blue eyes and a scar running vertically over his lips.  
This scar was from a former encounter with a rabid vampire.

"So you arrested that barkeeper, after that employee told you he had been attacked and the barkeeper told you he never had an employee?"  
Sweat ran down on one's temple.  
"Yes."  
They had fucked up, royally.  
"And where is that person now?"  
"We don't know."  
Cang let the report papers sink to the table and stared at both with an ice-cold gaze.  
"Then why are you standing here like salt-pillars? Let him be searched! What did the guy look like anyway?"  
"H-he was very pale, a-about your size, white hair, golden eyes...Sir!"  
The captains lip twitched suddenly.  
"Really?"

So it was him again, their main menace.  
He was nimble as a cat and sly as a fox.  
Cangs chief was after him so long already, that he had put a bounty on him.  
4 billion dollar for him, alive only.  
Cang didn't understand why the chief wanted him alive, but what did he care.  
He wanted the money.  
Why did that pest always slip through his fingers just by a hairs width.

The two officers still stood there and had watched the captains mood swing, from euphoria to deep fury.  
If they could, they would have ran for their lives already.  
Cang hissed through clenched teeth.  
"Get that bastard into my station ASAP!"  
"Yes! Sir!"  
They were happy to leave.  
The colleagues of the search team told them that he was already in the system so they went back to patrol.  
They'd better not fuck up again.

Cang Du however had called his chief.  
"Sir? Yes that vampire has been seen again. No, but we already search now. I think he didn't move far from his hideout, maybe an old storehouse."  
On the other side a warm baritone voice answered.  
"Good. If you catch him bring him into one of the dock houses at the port. I want to have some fun with him."  
"May I ask what else you plan with him, Sir?"  
"Cang, you're my best man, so yes. I'll tell you. I'm not only after him. I'm looking for his mate, the one who was the big boss of their self-made police and who led the first fights until he suddenly disappeared."  
"So you think he will come out when we have the pale one?"  
"I know it. Cang?"  
"Yes, sir?"  
"You better get that albino, or I pass my time testing the torture tools I got on your sorry ass."  
Cang gulped.  
"I understood."  
The chief hung up and Cang felt extremely concerned now.  
Maybe he shouldn't have made this call.

A lot farther away, a third party watched the happenings.  
"Oh my poor children, why are you castrating yourselves so much? Maybe I need to help you one last time before I perish."

Chapter 4  
End


	5. 5

The person was a young, very pale man, with black hair, pale blue eyes and who was abut the same size as Shiro and Ichigo.  
He seemed emaciated, but still had a firm stand and majestic appearance.  
Behind him appeared an other man, he was about a head taller than the other, looked much older and had one eye covered with a leather strap.

"How long do you intend to keep watching them?"  
The younger chuckled.  
"As long as my legs will carry me."  
"You didn't leave this spot since you left them alone."  
The older taunted him.  
Angrily, the smaller one spun around, wearing a grim face and dark, wing-like shadows hovering in his back.  
"No! Since you dragged me down here, Satan!"  
"You sold yourself Lucifer. My help to create a better race then his, for 10.000 years of servitude."  
This time real wings appeared behind the angry Seraphim.  
"I will never serve a lowlife like you! Neither will you have my powers!"  
Satan gnarled.  
"Don't forget who gave them back to you, after you fell from heaven. You can't leave this place. You can't help your creation and if you refuse to hold your end of the contract you may stay here until your flesh rots from your bones!"  
"We will see."  
Lucifer turned back around, to the sphere he made to watch his children through, and focused on it, seeing how his children struggled.

On the surface of earth, Shiro rose suddenly from a restless slumber.  
He had dreamed of that fateful day again, when all turned to ruins.

...

They all were admits the battle, vampires falling to their right and left, as well a humans being torn apart by those who were still standing.  
Rukia and Ulquiorra were at his right side, Ichigo up front.  
The orangette was always rushing ahead.  
Another salve of gunfire flew by their heads.  
"Ulqui!"  
"Watch out , Rukia!"

Just as Shiro turned around he saw tragedy happen.  
Ulquiorra got struck by one of the bullets, Rukia stopped in her run, trying to help, another wave of gunfire was shot right at them and Ulquiorra pushed his wife behind him, taking all of the bullets.  
He sunk to the ground, bleeding out fast from his wounds, several humans surrounded him and Rukia.  
She fought against them , trying to protect her dying husband.

"Rukia! No!"  
Shiro cried out, rushing toward them.  
Too late.  
The human that Rukia was attacking just in that moment, pointed the gun directly to her head, as she flung herself on him, and shot.  
Brain matter splashed from the back of her head and her body fell limp to the ground.

"Noooo!"

Shiro heard the cry in his back and cursed in his head.  
Just as Rukia got shot, Ichigo must have turned around, watching the gruesome murder of his daughter.  
Chaos broke loose.  
In a rampage the orangette tore at the human fighters who had killed his family, and all who came to their support.  
Shiro tried to help and calm his mate, in vain,  
Another, loud gunshot went off, right next to the albino.

"Shiro..."

The voice had been so faint, but it echoed in his head like a scream.  
Ichigo got hit and sunk to the ground.  
Shiro hurried and grabbed his mate, the last things had been like in a daze.  
All he knew that his powers burst out somehow and it was like time froze around them but they were going at twice the speed.  
Ichigo and him just suddenly were at one of their hideouts, the first bleeding terribly, already teetering on the verge of death.

...

Shiro felt more tired then when he laid down to rest.  
Things couldn't go on like this anymore.  
He needed to put a stop to this fight.  
Therefor he had to fill up his strength.  
So it was back to hunting.  
The albino readied himself and went out, not noticing that he wasn't alone in the area and he got spotted just as he turned into the second crossroad.

Chapter 5  
End


	6. 6

He couldn't believe his luck.  
A simple officer like him running into the most wanted of those beasts, twice.  
Now he could make up the screw up his colleague and him made , not two hours ago.  
They had been assigned to the west-side industrial area and split it in between them,  
So while he was wandering the ruins of the office buildings, the other roamed through the ruins of the factories.  
They had agreed to meet up at the adjacent park in the east of the district, that he just was heading for. and look through the storehouses together.  
The officer took his radio set and called the station.

"Here officer Kurumadani, patrolling industrial area, currently at the park terrain. I found the suspect, entering from west-side, walking toward midtown. Asking for further instructions."  
It took just mere seconds for an answer, but he wouldn't have thought that the captain himself would make it.  
"Watch where he goes and try not to get caught. Until I arrive I want updates to the position every five minutes."  
"Roger, sir."  
Kurumadani followed Shiro, wondering that he hadn't been found out already.

Shiro was in deep thoughts, while searching for a possible donator.  
Where could he go?  
The club district was off limits for some time now, until _the hunters_ wouldn't swarm around the place anymore.  
The shutdown malls always attracted teens to hang out there and do normal teen-like things in this war-zone.  
By this time of day though, he wouldn't even cross paths with a sewer-rat there.  
Just like in this park area, where just the bravest roamed, or the homeless on their way to the one or other broken up storehouse.  
The albino lifted his head, and glanced from left to right.  
Something wasn't right.  
"Huh."

He scanned the area and found a person.  
Upon creeping into his mind, he found it to be one of the two hunters that he escaped from today.  
Where was the other one?  
The maggot wouldn't crawl around here all alone, that was suicide.  
Either way, he was facilitated that the guy just had spotted him as it seemed.  
It was unthinkable what would have happened if he had seen him coming from the storehouse, with their hidden underground hideout.  
Shiro decided not to let the man notice that he had been found out.  
Maybe he could use him and his partner as snacks, when they were careless enough to get themselves tangled in his trap.  
Also the farther they got from the storehouses the better.

Oh shit.  
Why had the vampire stopped suddenly?  
Had he been found out after all?  
"Aramaki. I need you over here now, I think he found me out."  
Kurumadani whispered into his radio.  
"Coming. Avoid contact until I'm there."  
The other whispered back.  
"Ready your anesthetic bullets, just in case. Orders from above."  
A female voice joined the radio conversation.  
It was a woman who was on radio duty today at the station.  
"Roger."

Shiro headed to the malls, they would make an ideal place for a trap.  
The maze-like area let one get lost fast, when you didn't know it well.  
He hurried inside and searched himself an empty shop, where he could watch the big entrance hall.  
A few minutes later two uniformed sneaked inside, weapons and torches held at the ready.  
"Tsk."  
The old vampire huffed under his breath.  
They always had such a nervous finger, better be really careful.  
He watched them scout the lower floor and descended as they walked to the far end, where an other entrance was.  
"Station? We're at the closed mall. The vampire rushed inside, we lost him. We need more people to scan the area. When are the reinforcements coming?"  
"Here Station. They are just around the corner. Coming from the backside."  
"Roger."

'Shit.'  
There goes his luck.  
If he would stay here they surely would trap him rather than he would them.  
With only half his strength he couldn't fight off more than four people at once and he felt that there were a lot more coming than that.  
Shiro decided to retreat and let them search for him, in vain.  
So going out from where he entered he snuck back to the park terrain.  
Some homeless would do after all.  
The albino even would bring him to a shelter, if only to camouflage his own.  
It didn't even take long to find one and a rather young one to boost.  
Well, regarding the current situation, one could be lucky to even have a place to call home.  
He had his hands stuffed inside the sleeves of each others arm.  
Shiro went over to the young man and spoke to him.

"Hey, looking for a nights stay? I know a bay that's not frequented often."  
"Oh, aren't you generous? What can I do for you for showing me such a good spot?"  
"Well,"  
Shiro grinned and came really close.  
"If you don't mind, I'm rather hungry."  
"Pal, do I look like I have any food on me? Sorry, but you will have to look around somewhere else."  
"No, you have enough to feed me really."  
The albino replied, watching as the homeless turned pale, realizing what he was referring to.  
"You- You're one of these things! NO! Get away from me! HELP! "  
He cried out.  
"Shh!"  
Shiro snapped at him and subdued his fear.  
"I don't mean any harm. I'm just asking you to share a bit. I won't force you though."  
The homeless calmly looked at him.  
"So, I get a safe spot to sleep and have to let you eat off me?"  
"I'll show you the place anyway. Whether it's a yes or no. It's dangerous in the open."  
"For a Vamp, you're quite nice."  
The man said, warily, giving Shiro a look from the corners of his eyes.  
"We aren't much different from the average person. None of us wanted this war to happen."  
"Then why don't you stop it?"  
The question baffled Shiro, hell why was he small-talking to that guy even, he just wanted to eat.  
"How?"  
The albino asked back.

Now the homeless grinned, taking out his hands of the sleeves.  
"Drop dead."  
A silent clicking could be heard and Shiro's eyed widened.  
He felt a sharp pain in his stomach.  
"What...?"  
The homeless rose from his place and dropped his mantle, revealing the uniform of a captain.  
"I almost believed your lies, damn monster. You are lucky that the chief wants you alive, or I would have used an other bullet on you and spilled your guts."  
Shiro wanted to tear at the _hunter_ but his body had no strength at all.  
In fact he was getting real dizzy.  
What did they invent there?

"Shiiiiit!"  
He screamed at the top of his lungs, before all went dark.

Chapter 6  
end


	7. 7

Shiro slowly came to himself again.  
How long had he been out cold?  
He looked around, he was inside some barely lit building, tied to a chair with armrests with some simple leather bands.  
The only light was in fact, a lamp that hung right above him.  
The vampire took a deep breather and felt a sharp pain in his chest.  
Somehow the wound hadn't healed up yet, so did that mean there hasn't gone by much time?  
He tried break free from his bindings, but he lacked strength.  
Shiro growled in frustration, he needed to get out of here, before anyone of _the hunters_ came to do whatever to him.

"How do you like our newest invention?"  
What? How? Since when was he here?  
The guy that tricked him just came out from the shadows and Shiro hadn't noticed him at all the whole time.  
"I enlighten you about its components. Narcotics, combined with a one to ten solution of holy water. That makes it just weak enough to block your special abilities and reduce your physical perks. Otherwise, the narcotics wouldn't work on you beasts, would they?"  
The captain mocked Shiro.  
"Though I have to say, it took some sacrifices and a lot of test subjects until we found the right concentration."  
He parenthetically added with a shrug.  
Shiro huffed.  
"Like I care. What do you want, motherfucker?"  
He bellowed at him, ripping at his ties.  
"Me? Nothing. I'm just executing the commands of my chief."

"Cang, stop the chit-chat. Get started already."  
Another, warm baritone spoke from the shadows.  
"Of course."  
Cang Du agreed, turned toward the shadowy figure.  
He then turned back to Shiro.  
"Hey, you know what else I learned? Your body has a limit to regenerating. Isn't that right?"  
The captain spoke, with his hands put on Shiro's head, his thumbs lightly resting on the pale vampires eyeballs.  
"So what would happen in your state when I do this?"  
He then asked and pressed his thumbs into Shiro's skull, squashing his eyes like overripe fruits.  
The albino screamed, the pain was so great that he even blacked out.  
"Can't let you see my boss, you know."  
Cang stated, took a cloth from his pockets and cleaned his fingers.  
He then went over to the shadow man, bowed and left the room stating.  
"I'll set everything up. You may seat yourself comfortably in the other room, sir."  
"Just don't kill him to quick, Cang."  
"I won't, sir."

The next time Shiro came to, everything was dark.  
That bastard, fucking had blinded him, even at full strength the chances that his eyes restored were fifty-fifty.  
"You sick fucker! When I get free I mince you! Both of you!"  
He screamed into the darkness.  
"I don't think that you will."  
The baritone voice of the chief sounded strange, came it through speakers?  
Did he move somewhere else and watch from afar now?  
Figures, the high and mighty wouldn't dirty their hands.  
Shiro heard footsteps and a metallic clattering.  
Someone rummaged on something, at his right side.  
Another step, then a crackling sound, like electricity that sprung over from one point to another.  
Next he new, was that his body jerked uncontrollably, while it felt like it was on fire.  
He couldn't eve scream, because his muscles cramped so much.

"Where is he?"  
The albino heard the voice of the captain, Cang was it?  
"Who?"  
He whispered back after some time.  
Another shock hit him.  
"Where is the one you're always together with?"  
Shiro was dizzy, he clenched his eyelids over his empty sockets.  
So that was what they were after.

Ichigo.

But why?

"He's out of your reach."  
He muttered.  
Cang spoke close to his ear now.  
"Oh but dear vampire, he surely won't abandon you. So until he comes to your rescue, let's have some fun shall we?"  
His question was accompanied by another electric shock.  
Shiro was left alone for some time then and when Cang came back to him, he got injected with something .  
"We don't want you to die just yet. Also, let's make things a bit more entertaining."  
The albinos hunger subdued a bit and his wounds started to heal over, still he was as weak as an infant.  
He wondered, what kind of sick ideas the human had come up with, other than electric shocking.  
Cold fingers touched his, they bend his backward until he heard a snapping sound.  
Shiro was unable to scream.  
His bones had been broken before already, but the pain now was a thousandfold greater.  
"I gave you another mixture, that works miraculous on your nerves. Lastly, let's set some atmosphere. Just hearing you scream seems kinda boring."  
Cang was gone again, after some time there was a rustling sound like from old gramophones coming from the speakers and music faintly started to play.

It was a piano tune and the albino couldn't help but smirk.  
As his tormentor came back he couldn't hold back a snide comment.  
"I wouldn't have thought that your taste in music was that old, after the last radio-play I heard. Chopin, the Nocturne? Really? You knew he was _a vampire_?"  
"Playing brave now? Let's see how long you can keep this up. For your Info, my boss requested to play these, I'd rather played another tune. Now back to where we left off."  
Cang again broke a bone of one of his fingers, paused until Shiro was no longer screaming and then took the next.  
The albino didn't know how long that was going on, until eventually the captain got fed up with it.  
"This is getting kinda boring. Cutting your limbs off is a no go, so …. I think for today I let you off the hook. "  
The raven haired whispered into Shiro's ear.  
"Maybe you'll rethink your answer. Tomorrow I won't be as easy on you."  
"Then come at me, bitch."  
Shiro sneered, but he knew he was drawing the short end of the straw here.

Without a miracle he'd die here.  
When, was entirely up to Cang Du and his superior.

Chapter 7  
End


	8. 8

Tomorrow, he had said, but was it really already the next day?  
Blind as he was, enclosed in this stuffy room that smelled like rotten fish, had all sense of time left him.  
It could have been just minutes or a few hours after he had been left alone in deafening silence, that also was a kind of torture.  
Shiro had tried to concentrate on healing his eyes, but still it was going as slow as a snail that slithered on the ground.  
Either way, now he was anything but alone.  
His tormentor came back, gave him another injection of blood, just enough to keep him alive and enhance his healing a bit, before he went back to his cruel business.

"So, I ask again. Where is your partner?"  
Shiro spat out, to where he hoped were the bastards finely polished shoes.  
"Fuck of, bitch."  
He snarled and received a hard punch in his face, that slightly dislocated his jaw.  
The albino made a circling movement with mentioned jaw, bringing it back in place.  
"Heh, don't you have more?"  
"Fucking mongrel."  
Cang hissed back at him and gave him a kick to his chest which let him and the chair he was bound on, topple over.  
Shiro hit the floor hard, the air got pressed from his lungs and the rough wood drilled into his back.  
The vampire heard the clattering sounds again, before a foot pressed down on his chest.

"Tell me, what happens when you lot loose a tooth or two?"  
"You wanna play doctor now?"  
The foot pressed harder into his ribcage and he feared they might brake any second.  
"Try me."  
Shiro breathed at Cang, knowing that his answer didn't matter anyway, since t wouldn't stop him from doing what he planned.  
The albino, and his chair got pulled back up and a hand gripped into the hair on the back of his head , ripped on it and forced the vampire to bare his throat.  
His mouth was forced open and fixed with a gag.  
"Then lets try, if you're so eagerly asking for it."  
In the background, Chopin's Nocturne No. 2 started and the martyrdom started anew.

Cang pulled, agonizingly slow, at one of Shiro's fangs with a plier until it came off with a stream of blood flooding from the wound.  
The captain continued with the other and as that was pulled he threw his tool back on the table and left without saying a word.  
Shiro was alone again bleeding terribly, listening as the music played out.  
He swallowed every drop that poured from his wounds, since he couldn't afford any more loss of it.  
Was it an hour or just minutes later, when he was granted with just another blood infusion.  
Had the treatment just now been unintentional?  
Had the albino riled the other up after all?  
Maybe he could get him to make another fault.

"What? Regretting it now? Though I have to say – Thanks for the meal."  
He grinned at the raven, who again tore on his hair, forcing him to bare his neck.  
"Don't be so full of yourself, mongrel."  
Cang took the next tool from the table and let it snap twice next to Shiro's ear.  
"You want to tell me by now?"  
Shiro chuckled under his breath.  
"I've had worse. Try on."  
The officer huffed, moved away from Shiro's side and the next thing the albino felt was how one of his nails was pulled from its bed.  
Shiro suppressed a wail.  
One nail after the other got pulled, first on his hands, then his feet.  
He could barely think straight because of the intense pain.  
No way in hell would all these wounds heal.  
The vampire needed to focus on his eyes and his fangs, everything else could heal with time.  
Oh how weak he felt, was this how a normal human felt all the time?  
It was terrible to be so vulnerable .

The Nocturne No. 4 ended and the room was clad in silence, he couldn't even make out the others breathing.  
Was he alone?  
Did he really just leave him?  
Shiro was getting paranoid, awaiting the next cruelty coming for his any minute.  
But nothing happened, there was just him and the silence pressing on his head like a pair of strong hands.  
Better make use of it now, while he could.  
The albino calmed himself and concentrated, channeling all of his regenerative abilities on his eyes.  
He could feel how the smashed orbs slowly regained their form, the destroyed cells getting replaced by new.  
Shiro got dizzy, he didn't have enough nourishment to do any more now.  
He just, needed to rest a bit, just a few minutes of sleep.  
So he dozed off, completely exhausted, but determined to get out of here somehow, even when that meant to reduce his healing to the bare minimum once he had his sight back.  
The next thing Shiro knew, was that a heavy punch landed in his side.

"Rise and shine, mongrel."  
Cang told him in a sing-song voice.  
The albino noticed, shocked, that he was no longer in the chair, but rather hung freely in the air with his hands above his head.  
How far had he drifted off, or had he been given something while he slept?  
Anyhow, Shiro opened his eyes, to try out if they already fully restored.  
"Oh, are you trying to heal them? So how are they?"  
Shiro felt Chang's breath on his collar.  
Was he inspecting his eyes?  
Fuck, he still couldn't see.  
The human broke out in loud laughter.  
"Hahaha! They are fucking dull! Is that all you can do? Look at you, hanging here like a fish on display and as blind as a mole! What a laugh!"  
Burning pain spread in Shiro's right thigh.  
He had been pierced with, a knife?

"Let's lard you like a pincushion."  
Cang drove one of the thin knifes after the other into Shiro's flesh, all over his body.  
This time though, the chamber was just filled with the albinos sounds of agony.  
There was no more music playing in the background, nothing that his mind could cling onto to distract itself.  
Did they just do this before to give him a treacherous safety anchor?

"Where is your partner?"  
"Try on."  
He would withstand this, they wouldn't break him ever.  
The officer now pulled each blade out again, millimeter for millimeter, accompanied by pained grunts of the vampire.  
As the last one clattered to the ground. Shiro breathed as deep as he could, before he asked.  
"Aren't you running out of ideas already?"

"Not at all."

Chapter 8  
End


	9. 9

How long has he been holed up in here now, bearing one torture after the other?  
Two days? Three? A week?  
Fuck, he needed to get back to Ichigo.  
His mate had to have run out of his IV already.  
Maybe his body was already rotting away by now.

After the knifes, Cang had tormented him with a burning iron rod, cut of the skin all over his body and performed waterboarding on him.  
In between he always left a span of time for Shiro to recover a bit and before every new round he asked the same question, that Shiro always gave the same answer to.  
Now he hung in the air again, waiting for the next thing to come.  
However long he stayed here already, his fangs had finally grown back and his eyes were fully healed, but he still couldn't see very clear.

"Ichigo...stay away..."  
He whispered, hoping somewhere deep within him, that maybe the lack of nourishment tore the orangette out of his slumber.  
Hoping that he would survive somehow and hide away until this war died down.  
Shiro laughed at himself.  
That was impossible, both of it.

"What did you say?"  
"That you shall go and get yourself fucked by your boss."  
He sneered back at Cang.  
"Still talking big are we? You are really hard to break. I wonder how long you can keep this up."  
Shiro barely made out that Cang took a long instrument that bent down just above the hilt he was holding onto.  
Was that a whip?  
A sharp burning pain was his answer, as the tool lashed over his upper body with it's multiple strings that had hooks weaved in at the end of each one, letting him spin around.  
Shiro screamed at the top of his lungs.  
"Yes! Come on, show me some reaction already!"  
Cang called out, hitting him three more times, enjoying Shiro's anguish a bit too much.  
Another whiplash hit him.  
"Call for help! Come on!"  
"Gahh-! Never-!"  
Shiro pressed out in between his screams.  
"How-" -whip- "can you-" -whip- "be so fucking-" -whip- "stubborn!"  
The albino's body was a bloody mess, deep cuts crossing all over it.

"Cang!"  
There was it again, Shiro vaguely heard the chiefs voice in his daze.  
Cang straitened.  
"Sir, I didn't know you would come back."  
"It's been four days now. I'm getting tired of waiting. Obviously your methods show no effects on him. How are the eyes?"  
Shiro who had hung limp, with his head rested on his chest, looked up now.  
"Rest assured, motherfucker. You're a blurry mess to me."  
The vampire sneered at him, and slit his eyes.  
This so called chief, was a blonde man, a bit taller then himself, that was all he could make out.  
"Such a pity. Well then. Cang fix him up and get him back in his seat. Don't let him sleep until we know for sure that he isn't lying."  
"Yes sir."  
Cang did as he was ordered.

He gave Shiro twice as much blood as normally, so that he would heal up faster and tied him back to the chair.  
After that Shiro watched as his shemes left through the only door.  
Why wouldn't his eyes fucking focus?  
He needed to know how to get out of here.  
Focus...focus...for all that was holy in hell...FOCUS!  
"Grrrraaaah!"  
Shiro let out a frustrated scream toward the ceiling.  
He had conserved as much blood as he could, now his strength just had to come back to him.

The door opened and Cang entered, Shiro watched him close in.  
He held something in his hand.  
"We have a long night in front of us, mongrel."  
An electric shock hit the vampire.  
"Want to bet who holds out longer?"  
Shiro jeered back at him.  
The answer, was both.  
Cang occasionally shocked him with the stun gun to keep him awake, all the time eyeing Shiro's eyes.  
Early on the next morning he disappeared than, maybe to report to his chief.  
It took some time until he came back, with someone in tow.

"Well, it can't be helped. The chief wants results, so your state now has to suffice this special event."  
He threw the other person forward, who fell to the ground.  
Shiro could hear a high whimpering sound and the person didn't seem to be very tall.  
A woman or a kid?  
"The chief suggested to stir things up a bit. So, can you guess who that is?"  
Cang closed up to the person again and gripped the hair on the back of his hair and pulled the head up.  
"We caught this little girl, crawling around at the malls when we were hot on your heels. Originally we wanted to starve her to death, but now..."  
The captain left that unspoken.

The girl had dark hair and was very lithe, as Shiro could guess.  
With his blurry vision she almost looked like Rukia to him.  
His dead, adopted daughter.  
At this thought his heart hurt.  
'Don't be fooled. Don't let him notice. He'll use it against you.'

"Oh, are this tears?"  
Cang taunted, took a closer took at the girl, then snickered.  
"On closer inspection, wasn't there a similar woman with you? Heh! Yes, that's right, she and some other guy got shot, wasn't it like that? Hahahaha, what a laugh! How perfect!"  
The raven pulled at the girls hair again, lunacy sparkling in his eyes.  
"Now, watch your little girl suffer until you tell me. Where. Is. Your. Partner?"

Chapter 9  
End


	10. 10

Shiro was torn internally, on one side he couldn't sacrifice Ichigo to save that girl, on the other he didn't want her to suffer because of himself.  
Cang had tied her to a similar chair across from the albino, so that he could watch his gruesome doings.  
The vampire cursed his luck, just minutes ago his sight finally had begun to sharpen.  
The girl, maybe fifteen years of age, so in the middle of her _puberty_ , could have been Rukia's twin.  
The resemblance was astonishing.  
Shiro tried to hide the fact that he could see clear by now, but how long would that last?

Cang took a plier from his tool table, one that Shiro knew was thought to cut things off with.  
Way back in time, humans used this to cut the tails of pigs and certain dog breeds.  
"So, do you have an answer for me?"  
The raven asked without turning to Shiro, but instead tested the plier a few times if it opened and closed well.  
Shiro averted his eyes, he couldn't muster up any smart replies anymore.  
"Fine then."  
The captain turned to the girl and added.  
"It's really a pity that you are one of these monsters, otherwise I'd love to do entirely other things with you. But..."  
Cang gripped one of the girls fingers tightly and put it between the pliers blades.  
The girl still seemed to be like in a daze, she didn't react the least bit.  
"...Just imagining doing it with a filthy vampire bitch, makes me want to puke,"  
He pressed hard on the pliers, that cut into the girls flesh and bones, separating the finger from the hand at the base.

Instantly she was torn out of her daze and screamed terribly.  
Cang took an other tool from the table, cauterizing the wound, which let the girl cry out anew.  
"Can't have you die on me too fast."  
He whispered into her ear.

Shiro felt sick to his stomach, it was one thing to endure this himself, he had been through similar things once in the past, but being forced to watch an uninvolved little girl getting tortured was too much.  
He would have thrown up, if he had anything in his stomach to begin with.  
The albino wanted to tear his binds, but his strength still wasn't enough.  
Cang turned around to him and watched him struggle, with a big grin on his face.  
"Answer and it will stop."  
He taunted the vampire.  
Shiro glared vividly back at him and just let out a low growl.  
"Alright."

Cang took an other finger and repeated the procedure, while the girl pleaded for him to stop.  
Mercilessly the raven cut off one finger after the other, with little breaks in between, until there was only the thumb and the pinky left.  
"The longer you stay silent, the longer she will suffer. Can you really bear this?"  
The captain bluntly told Shiro as he faced him again, but the pale one just breathed heavily and glared daggers at the raven.  
"Fucking say something!"

Cang had jumped up and punched Shiro in the face, knocking out one of Shiro's molars.  
Latter just returned to eye the raven maliciously and spat a bloody lump in his face.  
The human lost his temper and beat Shiro to a pulp, before leaving the room while cursing under his breath about needing to clean himself off the filth.  
Shiro laughed out loud while Cang went away with big steps, just to piss the man off a bit more.  
It was better to turn the guys attention on himself, so the girl wouldn't be harmed any longer.  
That was what Shiro thought.  
When the captain aas gone, Shiro turned to the girl.

"Hey."  
She was crying her eyes out and let her head hang low so that her face was hidden behind her bangs.  
"What's you name, sweety?"  
"Hi-"  
She sniffed and made a hiccup-like sound.  
"Hisana."  
"Hi, Hisana. I'm Shiro."  
"I know. You belong to Rukia Onee-san's family."  
Shiro raised an eyebrow.  
"You know Rukia?"  
Hisana lifted her head, stared at him through teary eyes, with malice.  
"Rukia Onee-san and Ulquiorra-san were helping the fosters of the town. They didn't care if they were human or vampire. They brought us food and relocated us when it was getting to dangerous at our place. But then they didn't come anymore and one after the other child disappeared, or died."  
Tears began to quell from her eyes again.  
"I tried to protect the younger ones, but...but..."

She started to sob, before she screamed into Shiro's face.  
"Why did you abandon us? It's your fault that they all are dead! You were supposed to protect us! Why-?"  
Her voice died and she hung her head again, while her cries shook her whole body.  
Shiro hadn't known anything about it, but telling her and making petty excuses wouldn't change anything, so all he could do was mutter a quiet apology.  
"I'm sorry."

Chang came back shortly after, in a fresh uniform and fury in his eyes.  
He carried a butcher knife in his right and told Shiro in cold-blood.  
"For your insolence, she will pay now."  
The captain bared her feet, with one swing of the blade he chopped off all of her toes on the right foot, then closed the wounds by burning them out.  
Hisana wailed, her cries became frantic.  
"Now, back to where we left off. Tell me where your partner is, mongrel."

"I'm sorry."  
Shiro whispered again, which was meant for Hisana.

"Fine have it your way."  
Cang took the plier again and chose the thumb that was left on her left hand.

"Please don't! Stop! Stop! Please don't! I beg of you! No more!"  
Hisana's pleas grew higher and higher in volume.  
With a cracking sound she lost an other extremity and with out a pause Cang turned to the last finger of the hand.  
"Stop!"

Hisana began to scream at Shiro now.  
"Tell him! Shiro-san! TELL HIM!"  
"I'm sorry."  
Again the crunching sound and a short sound of pain.  
"Why won't you tell him? Why are you being so cruel?"  
The girl cried and screamed at the albino.  
"I can't"  
"Tell him! I don't want this no more! I can't take this pain any longer!"

"Shut your trap!"  
Cang intervened and gave Hisana a slap in the face.  
"Your fucking blabbering goes on my nerves!"  
The raven forced the girls mouth open, inserted the plier and cut her tongue out, while she let out a high pitched scream.  
"Now, that's better. Now you can't run your mouth anymore."

Shiro sat there, with shock widened eyes.  
"...Bastard..."  
"What was that?"  
"I'm gonna kill you bastard!"  
Cang smirked at Shiro's outburst.

"So your facade finally begins to crumble. Good, very good."

Chapter 10  
End


	11. 11

While Shiro and later Hisana were tortured, not too far away from where Ichigo rested, mentioned orangettes body struggled to survive.  
His IV had run dry after a bit more than two days and now he began to wither away in his deep slumber.  
Ichig's hair had begun to turn white at his temples and deep wrinkles began to show on his face, that had become so thin that his cheeks hollowed out.  
The skin on his hands had become thin and the muscles regressed.  
Ichigo was dying and there wasn't much time left for him.  
As he began to struggle to breath, an apparition materialized next to his bed.  
The young raven haired man with light blue eyes, Lucifer.  
"Is this how you want to end it?"  
He asked the sleeping one, before he touched his forehead and opened up an other dimension.

Lucifer had moved his and Ichigos soul where the spirits roamed on their search for the afterworld.  
The orangette slowly came to.  
"Where is this? Who are you?"  
Were the first things he uttered.  
"In the spirit realm and you may call me Lucifer."  
The fallen angel calmly answered him, with a straight face.  
It took Ichigo a few moments to let that sit.  
"Lucifer? As in _that_ Lucifer? What? But-. I thought-. Ywach?"  
He stuttered while his brain tried to comprehend what was going on.  
Lucifer shook his head.

"Ywach was a child that got separated from one of my first children and Satan used his bad luck to seduce him and make him his puppet. To shorten things, all Vampires who live now, originate from him and his child, because you, his second son got killed before you could eliminate your own family."  
Ichigo was confused.  
"So about Gabriel?"  
"Asim, as you were called then, was offered angelic powers in trade for his vampiric treats and eternal reincarnation."  
"Umm, ok. I think, I got that now. So what am _I_ doing here? Am I dead?"  
Lucifer waved in front of him and let his sphere appear in between him and Ichigo.  
"You are close. But I can offer you a way out."  
He told while showing Ichigo the image of his dying body.

Ichigo sighed.  
"Finally."  
"What?"  
The fallen angel wasn't quite sure if Ichigo meant it as he thought he might.  
Ichigo had a tired and sad expression on his face.  
"I lost everything, confined in this body that won't listen to my demands anymore, unable to do anything. I have no idea how long it has been, that I listened to Shiro suffer, from within that prison. He wouldn't abandon me, no matter what happened. That he isn't there now, means he must have been killed after all."  
Ichigo couldn't help the tears that started to roll over his face.  
He blamed himself for all of it.  
"Just like my little Rukia."

"You could recreate her, when you take my offer."  
"Huh?"  
Lucifer stretched his hand out to Ichigo.  
"I will give you all of my powers. Take revenge, create your daughter anew. You may do whatever you want with it. Just remember this; To give is to take. Nothing can be made from naught."  
The orangette growled at the angel.  
"How could I?"  
The raven tilted his head, not understanding the question so Ichigo barked at him bluntly.  
"How could I just recreate her? She wouldn't be the person she was,, but rather what I imagine her to have been! I don't want your powers! I never wanted any of this! Just let me die and reunite with my family!"  
Lucifer was taken aback by Ichigos outburst.  
He let him cool down a bit, then told with a slight smile.

"You really think that _all_ are dead?"  
"Otherwise Shiro would be sitting right next to this bed."  
Ichigo told and pointed at the scene in the sphere.  
Lucifer closed his eyes, made a gesture and the image in the orb changed.  
"Let me enlighten you."

He showed Ichigo everything that happened to Shiro in the past days, until the point where Hisana got involved.

The vampire was happy that his mate was alive, as well as outrageous because of what happened to him and surprised at the girls outward appearance, since she looked almost like his daughter.  
"Is that Rukia?"  
He asked Lucifer.  
"No, her name is Hisana. She is a foster that your daughter and her husband cared for among others."  
They both watched what happened next, how Cang cut off her fingers, punished her when Shiro acted out and then further took her fingers of her other hand after he hat cut out her tongue.  
Shiro had begun to protest in the last part and tried to break free from his ties.

"Your mate endured his physical torture for four days, without telling your whereabouts. Now with the psychological torment it's a guess how long he will last. With that knowledge, do you still choose death? His and the girls suffering will be all for naught."  
Lucifer turned toward him and once more stretched his hand out to the orangette.  
"Once again, I offer you my powers."  
Ichigo looked at the sphere, then at Lucifer and was about to take the hand, when the latter added.  
"But, in exchange, I will take something from you. That's how things work."  
"Speak up."

The fallen angel took a deep breath, before he held a long speech.  
"Satan restored my powers, in exchange for my servitude. Since I refuse to hold my end of the deal though he cursed me with a body that can not die. It's the same as Ywach's, who got the ability to eat another persons soul for it. So in turn for my powers I will take your mortality. I will finally perish and you will have to live on earth forever."

Ichigo eyed Lucifer sternly.  
"You aren't moving your contract onto me are you?"  
"No, that is bound to my soul, and will nullify with my death."  
Ichigo frowned.  
"The death thing is one thing. I could just do the same that you want now. But before I agree, tell me one thing."  
"Sure."  
"What did you think, making us to be like we are?"  
Lucifer looked at Ichigo for quite some time, then closed his eyes, preparing for just another speech.

"You shouldn't have turned out like you did. Actually that was Satan's doing, as an other kind of punishment for me, because I wouldn't obey him. In truth, you should have been as you are, just with the right to decide, when you want to die, without having to go through the aging process. I also wanted to grant you the ambrosia. The meal of the gods. But before I could, Satan dragged me to hell. And because of my protest he cursed you with a body that needed blood as foodsource."

Ichigo got stuck at one thing.  
"Ambrosia?"  
"Yes. It's the fruit of the tree of life and a drink made from a certain plant. You have to take sea-ambrosia, wet with morning dew and make a tea like brew from it. Those two nourish a man for an entire year. A god will need it once a month, when he won't use much of his powers."  
"But that plant is toxic."  
"To a normal human, since the gods don't want to share it."  
Lucifer cut off any more questions by saying.  
"Will you take my offer now? You will get all my knowledge with it as well. So spare your breath."  
Ichigo thought a moment about it, then took the hand and pressed it strongly.  
"I'll do anything to protect my family."  
Lucifer smiled.  
"That's what I hoped for. Well then let's begin."

The angel pulled Ichigo close and pressed his right hand flat against his chest.  
Ichigo felt like liquid fire spread inside him from the point he got touched.  
This feeling though didn't last long and when Lucifer left off of him he sighed, relieved like a heavy weight was lifted from him.  
"I already can feel my strength vanish."  
As his appearance began to falter slowly he told Ichigo.  
"Let me tell you one last thing as a parting gift. Your strength now surpasses that of the highest being in heaven. You are stronger than Metathron now, the one you tend to call god. Use this strength wisely."  
The fallen angel vanished and Ichigos soul got pulled back into his body.  
His aged vessel slowly began to restore itself back to it's youthful appearance.

The room he laid in was dead silent, until there was a deep inhaling sound, that sounded like earth itself breathed after a long time.

Chapter 11  
End  
_______  
  
Oh, before I forget, for those who wonder.

Roles played by:

Tensa Zangetsu - Lucifer

Satan - Giriko Kutsuzawa

Just wanted to make that clear, since I don't tend to use OC's


	12. 12

A pair of eyes slowly opened, their owner took another deep breath and cursed.  
"Oh no! No way! You didn't!"  
He jumped up, swayed a bit and looked around disoriented and then, in the blink of an eye, vanished, just too reappear in an entirely different place, where he found two men.  
One was outraged and screamed at the other, who looked like he could barely stay straight on his legs.  
"Don't think that you will get away with this! I am the king here!"  
The first yelled, before his rant go interrupted by Ichigo, yelling as well at the living dead.  
"You didn't say anything about those memories! You said knowledge! That doesn't equal!"  
Both men turned their gaze to Ichigo.

"Who the fuck are you? How did you even get here?"  
The first asked, then added toward the one next to him.  
"We're not finished with this."  
He then stepped over to Ichigo and mustered him.  
"So? How come a mere human like you came to my palace on hell?"  
Ichigo followed him with his eyes, noticing that he was seeing a weak double image.  
Intuitively he closed his left and the image was gone.  
"None of your business."  
The orangette told the also one eyed man in front of him,  
"Oh really?"  
The older tried to rile Ichigo up.  
"Well I think you are mistaken. I am the ruler of this place. Sa-"  
He got cut off by Ichigo who spoke with a plain face.  
"Sataniel, a lowly Cherubim who got thrown out of heaven after mutinying with others against heavens rulers. Is that correct so far? Yes? Then get out of my face."

Ichigo shoved the king of hell aside and turned his attention back to Lucifer.  
"Now you. Don't think I will just happily accept this shit. You won't go anywhere you got me?"  
"What do you want? We made a deal."  
Lucifer weakly replied, as if he just was about to pass out.  
"How dare you treat me like a small pawn, you meek human! Know your place!"  
Satan yelled in between.  
The orangette huffed, took a look back at Satan, stretched his hand out to him and drained him of his life-force, that came out through his chest as a glowing ball of light.  
"What?"  
Satan gasped and collapsed to the ground.  
Dead.

"I never said you could just die on the spot. And you never said that you'd give me your fucking memories. So as reparation you'll be at my mercy from now on."  
Ichigo told the fallen angel and pushed the light into his body, restoring it completely and granting it with new inhuman powers.  
"Now, take those memories back, will you?"  
Lucifer obliged, as he was shocked for the mercilessness and natural use of his new powers, that Ichigo just had shown.  
' _What have I done?_ '  
He asked himself, if he now had created something worse than Satan.  
Ichigo looked satisfied at the raven, as he noticed that those memories left him, but not the wisdom they included.  
"Very good. Now you have an hour, before this place collapses. Find anything or anyone you want to save and come to earth."  
He told the fallen angel, as he scanned the place for all the souls that resided in it.  
It were so many that he couldn't make out every single one separately.  
"You know my homeland. The time of heaven and hell is over."  
Ichigo removed the shackles from Lucifer's body.  
"You take responsibility for it and build the new afterworld, on the isles of Japan. Have you understood that?"

The orangette was ordering him around.  
 _ **Him.  
**_ Lucifer, the light-bringer, guardian of the sun!

He was eyed sternly by the other and after about a minute barked at.  
"I asked if you understood!"

This force.

It felt like this whole planet weighed down on him.  
That was more strength than he had anticipated from the young vampire.  
Lucifer could barely even mouth a word under this pressure.  
"Yes."  
He eventually pressed out, through clenched teeth.  
"Good. Now hurry, your time is running through your fingers."  
With that said Ichigo returned to the corpse of Satan and searched it for something.  
He found what he was looking for in a tiny bottle that the king of hell wore on a necklace.  
Also there was a clear white crysal on it.  
The orangette took the items and returned to earth, without speaking an other word to Lucifer.

Back in his own dimension, the first thing he saw was his own reflection in a mirror.  
He wore a hospital gown and his hair had gotten longer.  
Ichigo combed the strands back with his fingers, reopened his left eye and just then found an other change in appearance.  
Right this eye, that had been a dull brown for so long now, had turned a bright steel-blue color.  
He hid his, still brown, right eye behind his right hand and found, that in fact he could see with the left, though it was a different kind of seeing.  
Everything was dipped in a shining golden light.  
It was almost like with the ability he had, of seeing _the heart and soul_ of things.  
The orangette started to feel sick and clenched both eyes shut.  
He tried to concentrate on stopping, what he thought was his ability, but to no avail.  
As he opened his eyes again everything was double layered.  
"Great. You couldn't have spared me this."

Somewhere in the back of his head rose the information, that the golden sight was in fact how angels saw the world.  
Anyway, until he had the time to get used to it, he needed a way to go around that inconvenience.  
That was when he saw something lie on the nightstand next to the bed, through the mirrors reflection.  
He walked over and found his old eye-patch.  
"This will do for now."  
The orange head muttered and put it on.  
Though the rest of his get-up wasn't yet fitting for the occasion, so he thought a test of his new powers was in need.  
Using the clothes he wore, he let the fabric weave into something new on his skin.

In the end he wore a high-collared white shirt, with an also high-collared black coat over it, that split into two parts at waist height.  
It had golden ornaments at arms and chest and was held close by several red cords over the chest.  
A red cloth was draped over his shoulder, as well as around his waist to serve as a belt there.  
The ends of it hung down on the left side.  
Below that he wore dark gray trousers that ended in knee high, black boots.  
Pleased with his new clothes he was about to leave, when he found his sword standing all dusty in a corner of the room,  
He cleaned it and pushed the sheath under the belt, then fastened it with the sheaths cords to the lower layer.  
Finally ready, he searched for Shiro's presence in the area.  
It was not far from his place, though it felt very weak and radiated despair.

Ichigo cursed, he had taken to long in hell.  
Hopefully he wouldn't be too late.  
"Better hurry now."

Chapter 12  
End  
_______  
  
Sataniel (hebr.) , aka: Satanas/Satana (hebr.) - Satan (hebr.) - Mephisto (hebr.) - Phelesto (hebr.) - Mephistopheles (greek.) - Diabolus (lat.) - Diabolos (greek) - Diablo (span.)

You will find one or two pictures in my DA for this chapter.

Have a look if you like.

Yours  
Shiro Yue


	13. 13

In the time, when Ichigo made his first actions after waking, over at Shiro's location.

Captain Cang Du had gotten fed up with the girls wails and over-tuned it with music.  
He let the song _In the year 2525_ from Zager and Evans bawl from the speakers at full volume, and so added an other kind of torture onto Shiro's weakened state of mind.  
It hadn't passed the raven, that the pale was bothered by it a lot and enjoyed the vampires reactions to it greatly.  
Shiro was about to lose it, when suddenly he felt that Ichigos presence sparked, then second later vanished altogether.  
The only thing he could think of, was that Ichigo had been torn awake from the pain of dying, before he made his final breather and was released from his suffering.  
The cognizance that everything was over now, was the final straw.

He lost it.

Shiro silently began to chuckle, which grew in volume until his laughter even was louder than the music engulfing the room.  
Cang let go of Hisana and both looked over at the vampire, probably thinking that he had gone nuts.  
They were right with it.

Shiro had endured so long.

Being tortured, watching as the girl got hurt over and over again, abandoning his kin for years to suffer, only to treat his mate, just for that man to die now, when he couldn't even tell him goodbye.  
Some footsteps and a heavy punch to his face later, his laughter died abruptly.  
"What's so fucking funny?"  
Shiro chuckled under his breath.  
"Heh. Its over. . Hahahahahaha!"  
"Stop laughing you freak!"  
Another punch, this time in his stomach.  
Air left Shiro's lungs in a huff at the impact, but that didn't stop him from continuing his crazed laugh.

Cang didn't get what fuse just blew in the pale ones head, but it crept him the fuck out.  
He thought that he might get jumped by him any minute.  
That the vampire had played him all the time and now gathered enough power to rip him to shreds.  
"Punch me all you want. Hehe. Come on. Torture me again. The girl is almost dead anyway."  
Shiro told creepily and tilted his head aside, eyeing Cang with a maddened look.  
"Nothing matters anymore. You won't find him."  
He added in a singsong voice.

Hisana barely could stay conscious while she watched the strange scene and was glad to finally have some peace.  
Deep inside, she wished for the elder to be killed by the human in the most gruesome ways.  
On the other side, upon seeing him that miserable, she pitied him.  
Something only he could notice must have happened.

Cang was on edge, the pale guy definitely snapped.  
"Come on. Cut me. Drown me. Burn me alive."  
Shiro chirped at him, just to receive an other punch as an answer.

In the background the song was ending once again.

-/-

 _Man has cried a billion tears_  
for what, he never knew  
Now man's reign is through

 _But through eternal night_  
the twinkling of starlight so very far away  
May be it's only yesterday

_-/-_

Then it started over.

Shiro lost count how often it repeated by now.

"Where is he?"  
Cang yelled at him.

-/-

 _In the year 2525_  
If man is still alive  
if woman can survive

_-/-_

Suddenly the music died, the speakers just gave off a static crackling anymore and an eerie atmosphere arose.  
It was like electricity was in the air that was about to burst out in a thunderbolt.  
Cang was looking around.  
He freaked out, started to strangle Shiro with his bare hands, demanding.  
"Where the hell did you hide him?!"

Shiro just let out a choked laugh, uncaring for the strange event that just occurred.  
Madness still shone in his eyes.  
"Where is he?!"

A sudden force pushed Cang off of Shiro and smashed him against the far wall.  
All air got knocked from his lungs.  
Dizzy, he made out a figure standing in a hole, where had been a solid wall before.  
The missing concrete though, weighed down on him as big chunks of rubble.  
"Looking for me?"  
The air was pregnant with blood-thirst.

The speakers stopped crackling and the song played on, at a totally different point.

-/-

 _If God's a-coming,_  
He ought a make it by then  
Maybe He'll look around Himself and say  
"Guess it's time for the judgment day"  


-/-

The last sentence looped some times, before finally the whole stereo blew up, smoke came from the speakers after they exploded.  
The figure was right in front of Cang all of a sudden and stepped on a big piece of debris that rested on the mans chest.  
"Time to turn the tide. Motherfucker."

Chapter 13  
End  
______  
  


Again I used parts of Simon and Garfunkel's song 2525 for the sake of the story. I make no profit from it.


	14. 14

Cang couldn't make out the mans features clearly, because of the back-lighting coming through the hole in the wall.  
He guessed that he was just a tad taller than himself and have reddish hair, maybe?  
The man had shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers, while he stepped on the piece of wall.  
The captain could barely breath because of the much greater weight now pushing down on him.

"Who the fuck are you?"  
He eventually hissed.  
The guy bend down to him, hands still in his pockets.  
"Your worst nightmare."  
He breathed and showed small fangs through a menacing grin.  
Cang now could see that he had one eye covered by a patch and he wore a sword.  
The captain struggled under the debris and could shake his right arm free.  
He tried to punch the other in the chin, who just bend back a bit to avoid it.  
"So slow."  
He mocked him, but Cang used the opportunity, grabbed the hilt of the sword and pulled.  
It slipped out of the sheath easily.  
The raven had to use all his strength to keep the heavy blade up and pierced it's owner in the center of the chest.  
The one eyed didn't even flinch as the blade cut flesh and bones.  
He grabbed Cang's wrist with his left hand and pressed it tightly, kicked the debris away and stepped closer to the human, impaling himself to the hilt.

"I'm afraid, this doesn't work."  
Then he tightened the grip on the wrist even more until there was a snapping sound.  
Cang let out a muffled cry and lost his grip on the sword.  
The guy pulled the blade from his chest and swung it to push off the blood.  
A small trail of it, splashed against the captains face.  
"Monster."  
He stated, shocked.

"That's right."  
Mentioned monster sheathed his sword and added.  
"The name is Kurosaki Ichigo, though."  
A faint voice whispered in their back, turning the orangettes priorities elsewhere.  
"Ichigo..."

"You stay here."  
He stated to Cang, who was left unable to move all of a sudden.

Ichigo turned around and walked over to Shiro and Hisana.  
"Is that really you? Am I dead already?"  
"No silly, you aren't. And don't dare to die on me now."  
He said gently to Shiro, as he removed his shackles.  
"Can you walk?"  
"I ...guess. But I won't be running marathons like this."  
Shiro joked weakly, tears of joy glittering in his eyes.  
"No need to."  
Ichigo smiled.  
He looked over his shoulder to Hisana.  
"Do me a favor and take her with you to _that_ place. Heal up. I catch up to you later."  
Shiro could only nod his agreement.  
Ichigo was very different.  
He emitted a kind of strength that was beyond Shiro's comprehension.

Pure and divine.

"What happened?"  
He eventually asked, as he rose from the chair on unsteady feet.  
"I'll explain later."  
That was all Ichigo said, when he removed the binds on Hisana, who was hissing at him and began to punch at him with her fingerless palms as soon as her hands got free.  
"Go away! I hate you! Both of you! I'll kill you!"  
Ichigo didn't bother the struggling and smiled gently at her.  
"Hisana, you can try as often as you like. Until you're satisfied."  
"Huh?"  
He poked her on the forehead gently and she fell asleep.  
The orange head picked her up and handed her over to Shiro.  
She was real skinny and much to light for her height.  
Like this though, Shiro wouldn't have any problems to carry her the whole way.  
"Go now."  
Ichigo said and gave Shiro a quick peck on his lips.  
As he stood straight again, a loud bang echoed in the room, that originated from behind them.

The orangette stood still like a mannequin, blood ran in a thin trail over his face, from a hole in his forehead.  
A bullet had gone through it, whilst also snapping the band of his eye-patch.  
Mentioned patch slowly slipped off, revealing the blue eye.

"Ichi...go?"  
Shiro whispered with shock widened eyes.

The orangette tilted his head back and a bit sideways.  
He sighed, wiped the blood from his face, and smeared a bit of it.  
"Now, where did you produce that from?"  
Ichigo asked the man who was fixed on the spot behind him, with the small gun still held up toward the orangette.  
As he turned around to him, the wound slowly closed up.

Fear-struck the human shot his whole magazine at him, but because he was shaking so much, he barely grazed him with only two projectiles.  
"I thought we were through with that already."  
Ichigo told deadly calm.  
Cang believed that the blue eye was glowing.  
His gun all of a sudden slowly began to rust and crumble to dust from the barrel on.

"Though I have to say that I'm surprised you could even move that much. Maybe I was too easy on you."  
Ichigo told on, turned back to Shiro and asked him.  
"Please go now. You needn't see this."  
"But, Ichigo!"

"Go."

It was a calm statement, yet it didn't leave room for arguments.  
Shiro surrendered and left in a hurry.  
Whatever happened to his mate, somehow changed him greatly.  
Ichigo looked after him until he was out of sight, before he'd pay Cang any attention again.  
"Tell me if I have this correct."  
He spoke, slowly walking toward the man, his boots making clacking sounds on the ground with each step.

" _You_ shot my family."

_clack...clack..._

"You tortured my mate for...four days?"

_clack...clack..._

"And the girl...for one."

_clack-clack_

He now was directly in front on the raven again, looked down on his figure with his two differently colored eyes and tilted his head to the left.  
"Your tough luck, that I won't waste my time with you that long. So..."  
Ichigo crouched down to him now.  
"I'll compress the same amount of agony into, let's say..."  
He stared intently at Cang as if he seriously was thinking about a time frame.  
Then he grinned widely, baring the tips of his fangs and emphasized each word.

"Six. Hours."

Chapter 14  
End


	15. 15

The air around them was heavy and suffocating.  
An icy wave crawled over Cang's back.  
This _thing_ was terrifying.  
What was he even?  
Surely no human, but he had never heard of a vampire like him.

That guy crept him the fuck out.  
Surviving a stab to the heart was one thing.  
Cang thought that it could have been some trick, because he used the blade of that Kurosaki guy himself, but taking a bullet straight to the head, without even flinching...  
The raven didn't even know how he was able to move his arm just enough to take hold of the pistol he kept in the inner pocket of his jacket.

As soon as the orange head sat eyes on him the hairs on his neck stood up and he felt like the blood in his veins froze.  
Now he stood right in front of him and all Cang could think of was.  
' _I'm finished._ '  
What was that Ichigo guy planning though?  
He was eyeing him with his strange two-colored eyes, as if he was looking for something.

"Shall we start then?"  
Mentioned almost casually asked, grabbed the human by his collar and threw him across the room, so that he crashed into the chairs where Shiro and Hisana had been bound to.  
They broke under the impact and a piece of one dug into Cang's left thigh.  
The Captain tried to suppress a pained scream.  
Ichigo was already next to him again.

With his face barely an inch from the humans he asked in a demanding manner.  
"Who is pulling the strings?"  
"What?"  
Ichigo stepped on the piece of wood, pushing it further into the thigh.  
"Who is the big boss of yours? Where is he hiding?"  
He clarified.  
The pain made Cang dizzy.

Even though, why was that guy asking him these questions now?  
Wasn't he just planning on revenge?

"Fuck you."  
Cang pressed out and got kicked through the room again for it.  
He felt how several bones broke under the kick and from the impact of him colliding with a wall.  
The human coughed up blood.  
"Oh. Did I kick too hard? Well then that leaves me no choice."  
Ichigo spoke as he came over to Cang.

Again he stared at him like that.  
Was he doing something again?  
This eye glowed so creepily like last time.

Ichigo picked him up by his throat.  
"Until I got my answers, you won't kick the bucket, no matter what I'll do with you."  
The orangette took his already broken right arm, speaking on.  
"For example this."  
He spun it around it's own axis until eventually it ripped off at the elbow.  
Blood gushed from the big wound, but soon it stopped as the wound closed on itself.  
The pain though lasted.  
Cang couldn't hold his screams anymore.  
He felt like fainting on the spot.

"Shut it."  
Ichigo tightened his grip on Cang's throat, almost cutting off his air supply and though forcing him to spare his breath.  
He tipped against the Captains temple.  
"You don't have to say anything, just think of the answers I want, maybe I'll end it then."  
' _He really is a monster._ '  
Cang thought to himself and found that his opponent started to grin seconds after that thought rushed through his head.  
In his mind rose the idea that maybe he'd get off at least alive if he told that _beast_ what he wanted.  
But then he resolved to stay loyal to his chief.  
"So your chief is it?"  
Cang mouthed a 'fuck you' .  
Ichigo huffed and brought him over to the broken down chairs.

One of them miraculously repaired and the human was set onto it and bound on the chest and waist.  
In once swift motion Ichigo ripped off the remaining part of the right arm.  
"Think twice. Where is he?"  
"Don't know."  
The raven pressed out, through clenched teeth.  
Next he lost the whole other arm.  
Cang definitely would die here.

Why should he rat out his boss then?  
He was in the same place as that pale vampire now.  
Then again, if he told the guy the place, his boss would also get what he wanted.  
It was even his boss' fault for getting him in this shit.  
What did he want from a monster like this?  
He couldn't have any means to defeat it.

His train of thoughts got interrupted as Ichigo ripped out the piece of wood that still stuck in his thigh.  
An image of the V.A.S.T. Tower flashed in Cang's mind, among the thought of their main station.  
"So you're just guessing. Too bad."

Ichigo swiped off the tools of Cang's table, took the arm-less man and bound him onto it.  
He then took the butcher knife from the floor and played around with it in front of the man.  
Suddenly he swung it down toward the ravens neck and stopped just a hairs width from it.  
Coldly he eyed Cang, who had shock widened eyes, sure too have met is demise.  
The orangette took away the knife, leaving just a thin cut on the skin.

The weapon began to change form in his hand, until it had become a small cage, with open bottom and long spikes at the underside.  
"You know your ways around torture don't you?"  
Ichigo asked casually as he sat the cage on Cang's stomach carefully, so that the spikes wouldn't hurt him.  
Then he turned around to the chairs and retrieved the upper arm he had tossed aside.  
The humans limb also changed into a new form.  
It became a huge, gross rat.  
The orange head placed it under the cage and then weighed the metal object down.  
It's spikes dug into Cang's flesh and made it unable to remove.  
Ichigo grabbed the table and pulled it over to the only light source, placing the cage directly under it.  
He sunk the lamp down, so that it touched the metal bars.

"Tell me, what will happen next."  
He whispered into Can's ear when he was finished.  
The Captain looked at the rat with wide eyes.  
He damn well could guess what would happen, even if he didn't know.  
Cang began to squirm under his bindings in fear.  
Ichigo flicked him on the forehead, before he sat down in the now free chair.  
"I'll correct my statement."  
With an emotionless expression he looked at the tied up man.  
"Two. Hours."

The lamp began to emit a lot of heat and the rat wanted to get away from that.  
Soon she began to scratch on Cang's stomach, ripping the clothing's.  
Eventually it teared the skin, before it began to gnaw on the flesh with it's sharp teeth.  
The human started to wail which soon grew into screams.  
The rat had gnawed a way into his belly cave and crawled around in it in search for a way out.  
Here and there she gnawed on his intestines, but somehow avoided the big ones that'd bleed heavily if punctured, as well as big arteries.  
In the end though she seemed to grow frustrated and just bit and clawed through everything until she broke free from the flesh cage, through the anus.

The rat ran away into the darkness.  
Ichigo also rose from his seat and left without looking back to Cang who laid on the table, slowly bleeding out.  
Exactly two hours had gone by, counted from the moment in which Ichigo had send him flying for the first time.  
But other to Ichigo's words Cang still wouldn't die.  
Unable to even blink and with a body that should be dead by now, he laid there while the lamp above him slowly cooked his flesh.  
Even when the smell of that flesh attracted flies and other scavengers, who feast on him, he still would be conscious.  
Cang was trapped in an endless hell filled with pain and no one was around to free him.

Chapter 15  
End


	16. 16

Ichigo walked slowly back to the hideout, through the park where _the hunters_ had caught Shiro.  
He felt weak on his legs.  
The double sight gave him a headache and his stomach twisted and let him feel sick as well.  
He couldn't comprehend that he just now had let a rat eat out a man alive and that he had watched the whole ordeal.  
Moreover, that this didn't bother him the slightest.  
Had he always been that cold-blooded, or had taking Lucifer's power changed him?  
Anyway, he needed some rest and a new eye-patch.

Finally he reached the place and entered through the secret door in the storage room's floor.  
Shiro was already waiting for him.  
The pale vampire had rested the girl on the bed that Ichigo occupied before and put an IV to her arm.  
On the nightstand next to her lay several empty blood bags.  
Her wounds had closed and she looked much healthier, but the amputated limbs didn't regenerate.  
"She won't wake up and she's sucking up the blood like a sponge. This is the last bag I have."  
Shiro mumbled, then gazed at his mate as if he was a ghost.  
It felt strange somehow for Ichigo.  
The younger didn't know how to act, after all he had noticed most of the things that happened in this room, while his body was asleep.  
Still it's been a long time since _that_ day.  
The image of the dead Rukia and Ulquiorra was etched into his mind, as well as the shocked face of Shiro as the bullet struck him.  
Ichigo couldn't fathom that this projectile had been a simple anti-vampire bullet, like Renji had used and refined for their own organization.  
There was no way it could block the soul from the body.

"Ichigo..."  
He heard Shiro's faint whisper, that dragged him from his musings.  
The elder rose from his seat and came over to him.  
"Yes, Shiro?"  
Those golden eyes, he had longed to see, mustered him from head to toe.  
Were there tears in them?  
"Fucking idiot..."  
Shiro muttered, as he let his head sink down.  
Ichigo was a bit confused as to what exactly his mate was referring.  
A heavy punch suddenly landed in his stomach and let him bend over slightly, so much that Shiro could easily grab him by the collar and pull him close.  
"You're a fucking idiot, Ichigo!"  
He yelled into his face.  
The pain ebbed away slowly and the orange top produced a measly smile.  
"I missed you too."

Shiro really was in tears now.  
He hugged Ichigo tightly, like he was afraid he'd vanish if he wouldn't.  
"I thought you were dead."  
He mumbled into his mates chest.  
Just then Ichigo noticed that he was about a head taller than the other, all of a sudden.  
Ichigo patiently waited for Shiro to calm down and let go of him.  
He then took the pale ones face gently into his hands and gave him a soft passionate kiss.  
"Let me explain, ok?"  
The other nodded and Ichigo moved them over to Hisana.  
"Poor girl."  
He stated, then began to explain the happenings to Shiro while he concentrated his powers on the girl searching for any injuries other than the visible ones and heal them.

As he was about to finish his story he told.  
"Lucifer said; _to give is to take_ , and, _nothing can be made from naught_. So basically I can't make anything from thin air."  
He stopped for a moment then, turned his attention to Hisana's hands.  
"Technically though, air isn't _nothing_ , so..."  
He left that unspoken, as slowly, the bones on the girls left hand regrew and muscles and tendons weaved over it.  
Finally everything got covered by smooth, slightly pale skin.  
The same happened with the other hand and the toes.  
Eventually her body was healed up and seemed as if nothing ever happened to her.  
Shiro had watched awestruck.

"So I am kind of a god now?"  
Ichigo said, looked over to Shiro and joked.  
"That sounds totally cliché, doesn't it?"  
He blinked and huffed shortly before announcing with a dark expression.  
"Anyhow, I'll find every last of these motherfuckers and make them pay."  
After a long pause he added with a lighter expression  
"When all this shit is through, I will reset earth. Nothing will stay as it is now and it shall never get like this again."  
Shiro frowned.  
"What do you mean?"  
Ichigo turned his back to the sleeping Hisana and told Shiro, what he had left out before.  
"I erased hell, and heaven will be gone as well. I'll change the vampires to what they should have been, before Satan tampered with them."

He took his mate by his hands, speaking on.  
"There will be just you and me as the sole kings of the new earth, if you're willing to share the burden with me."  
The elder blared at Ichigo, clearly shaken to the core.  
"Have you lost your mind?"  
The orangette shook his head.  
"No. I'm just fed up with the things as they are. I have the power to change it for the better now. So I'm asking you. Will you stay with me for eternity?"  
Shiro was dumbfounded.

What the heck was going on?

"I didn't leave your side for the past five years. Of course I'll stay with you."  
Ichigo sighed in relieve and smiled.  
"I'm glad."  
A faint rustling could be heard behind Ichigo, but despite him noticing he didn't move until a small filigree hand stabbed through his stomach.  
The _god_ didn't even flinch, looked over his shoulder to the now awake Hisana and asked her.  
"Does this satisfy you yet?"  
She didn't answer him, but pulled her hand back until she could grab onto his intestines.  
She pressed tightly on, what she thought would be the bowels, until they crushed under the pressure.  
Ichigo couldn't avoid a cough raising in his throat, that let blood spill from his mouth and run from one corner in a small line.  
Still, he smiled at Hisana.  
The girls eyes widened and she jerked her hand back out of him, just then realizing that they were healed, as well as her feet.

Hisana knew that she couldn't have healed up on her own, even when she would have been fed a great amount of blood.  
She stared at Ichigo, scared to her core.  
"How?"  
"I told you, haven't I? You can try as often as you like. Though I'm afraid that you won't ever meet your goal."  
He turned around to her, while his wound slowly closed and his organs rebuilt themselves.  
Even the fabric of his clothes returned to their original state, through a power that Hisana couldn't comprehend.  
"That reminds me."  
Ichigo said, looking at the tattered clothes of the girl.  
He lifted his right hand and from it's palm fabric weaved itself into a dress.

It had the same color as Hisana's eyes, with a pattern on the skirt, that looked like blooming cherry tree branches.  
"Change into this,"  
Ichigo told her and she fetched it quickly from his hand and hurried around a corner where the men couldn't see her.

The upper part fit perfectly on her, like a second skin  
It covered her entire collar and was held up by a neckband.  
The Arms reached a bit over the elbow and the shoulder part was cut out.  
At the waist the dress fell into a wide skirt, that folded a bit.

Hisana loved the dress, but didn't want to admit it.  
She still hated the two.  
At least that was what she wanted to tell herself.

Ichigo had turned his attention to Shiro as Hisana had run off with the dress.  
He clicked with his tongue as he looked him up and down.  
"You look like you got hit by a truck. Let me change that."  
The orangette used his powers and let Shiro's clothes change directly on him.  
He just hadn't done that to Hisana, since that would have been really impolite.  
In the end Shiro wore similar clothes like his, just where his own had golden accents his mates where silver.  
The color was fitting for his pale figure.

Shiro looked down on himself.  
"Matching clothes? Very classy."  
Again Ichigo clicked his tongue and changed the topic.  
"Have you even eaten yet? Don't think I haven't seen those scars."  
Shiro answered with a shrug.  
"There's nothing left. I gave everything to the girl to save her."  
Ichigo grumbled.  
He couldn't let his mate stay like this, but hunting wasn't an option now.  
"Alright! Then take mine."  
The orangette told to Shiro, rolled up the sleeve on his right arm and held his bared flesh out to the pale.  
Shiro was hesitant as he didn't know what would happen if he drank a _gods_ blood.  
"But Ichigo...what if...you could as well kill me with this."  
"I also don't know what exactly might happen, but I'm one-hundred percent sure that you won't die from this."  
Shiro sighed, but did as his mate wished anyways.  
He suck his fangs into the others wrist, and it took him only two gulps of his mates blood to feel as sated as when he drank up a whole humans blood.  
The pale could feel how all of his wounds healed instantly.  
He let go of Ichigo and swiped over his lips.  
His blood had a very rich taste, he couldn't even come up with anything to describe it.  
"Wow."  
"Yea,, wow."  
Ichigo agreed.  
The bite marks on his arm had already closed again, so he rolled his sleeve back down.  
Just then Hisana came back to them, and Ichigo felt his heart skip a beat as his eyes fell upon her.  
Dressed in the new clothes she was even more beautiful and resembled his child so much.

How couldn't she?

Her looks were almost identical and the dress she got from him, was the same that Rukia had owned once.  
Just the color had been different.  
"What do you want to do now?"  
He asked her, trying to hide his puzzlement and her eyes widened slightly, as she stared at Ichigo.  
Ichigo wanted to help her, and make up for the pain she had gone through because of them.  
At the same time though, he didn't want to push himself onto the girl.  
"I...ugh...could let you forget...what happened."  
He offered her.  
Hisana looked him deep into the eyes and said calmly.

"No."

That surprised Ichigo a bit, but if that was her will, so be it.  
His head hurt to much to even bother with it.  
He covered his blue eye and lowered his head.  
Hisana noticed his misery and figured out the problem quickly.  
She hurried over to where she had left her old dress and ripped off one of it's arms, from which she then made a long stripe.  
With fast steps she came back to Ichigo, but then courage left her.  
Hesitantly she closed the distance between her and the orange head.  
While avoiding his gaze she handed him the cloth.  
"I...I'd...like to stay...with you."  
A slight rose blush covered her face when Ichigo took the cloth.

He saw that the ends would fray if it would be left as is, so he just let a seam weave on it's ends, to not hurt the girls feelings.  
"Thank you."  
Ichigo told her gently, like a father, and patted her on the head.  
He bound the dark gray cloth over his left eye and was relieved that the double sight was gone.  
Slowly his headache subsided as well.  
After some moments of silence he asked Shiro.

"Where is my daughter buried?"

Chapter 16  
End  
_______  
  
Images of Shiro's and Hisana's attire on my DA

Anyways, till next time  
See ya  
Shiro Yue


	17. 17

Shiro led him to the place he asked for.  
They left Hisana in the hideout, so that she could rest and stomach the past events.  
It was a rather long walk, past broken streets with slowly crumbling buildings siding them.  
Ichigo couldn't stand the sad sight any longer, after they walked through it for about half an hour.  
He stopped his walk and unbound the knot of the cloth he wore over his eye, while he muttered under his breath.  
"This sucks."

He fixed a rather large ruin of a multistory flat.  
The steel and concrete began to crumble until it was just tiny piece of debris, that further declined until it was but dust.  
From that building out the decay spread to the adjoining ruins and the street.  
Like an illness it befell everything that was man-made.  
In their place, wet soil spread and soon small sprouts began to grow.  
Ichigo continued his walk, the death and rebirth following his every step.  
He needn't concentrate on it any longer, so he could cover his eye again.  
Which he did, just as he passed Shiro who had stopped and waited for him a few meters ahead.  
"Really?"  
The vampire asked him with a raised eyebrow.  
"I have to start some time. It'll slowly creep over the whole Isles on it's own."  
Not long after that Ichigo noticed that the place seemed familiar, just shortly before a big building came into sight.  
They were back.

"Home."

Ichigo whispered the word, with an aching heart.  
The big mansion seemed almost unscathed from the battles, only nature slowly crept onto it's white walls.  
The smaller houses though were not so lucky, many of them had broken down walls or destroyed roofs.  
"I thought this was a good place for them to rest. Wanted them to be with us when all this was finished. Hell, if I had known..."  
Shiro tried to explain to his mate, who rested his right hand onto his left shoulder, in a calming gesture.  
"Don't fret. Lead the way Shiro."

They went around the house to the backyard.  
There, on a small hill, were several tombs with a single middle sized rock on each of it.  
One on the top and four at the hills feet.  
Ichigo thought that the rocks were supposed to serve a tombstones.  
 _'Where should he have gotten real ones from, even.'_  
The orange head thought to himself.  
"You even buried the others here?"

His heart thumped heavily in his chest.  
Nothing of this needed to be.  
He should have known better, than to act out so openly.  
Presenting themselves to the humans was a great mistake and he was responsible for all of this.  
Ichigo walked up to the single grave at the top.

"Is this Rukia's?"  
He asked without looking back to Shiro.  
"Yes. In the front are Ulquiorra and Stark. Shinji is on the left and Grim on the right."  
"I see."  
Ichigo knelt down in front of his daughters grave.  
Shiro had done a great job, regarding the situation, but still it felt unfitting that they hadn't actual tombstones.  
So once again, Ichigo removed his eye-cloth.  
He used the simple rocks as a vessel and let them become, traditional japanese grave monuments.  
Rukia's was the most detailed and biggest.  
Like this he could let them rest respectably.  
Ichigo decided, that this place also would be the first to bear the fruit for his new life.  
He produced the item he had taken from Satan's corpse from his pocket and opened the tiny glass bottle and poured it's content into the palm of his hand.

The orange top rose from his place and walked behind Rukia's grave, down the hill.  
About one meter from it's base he opened the soil and planted a small seed inside.  
With his powers he fastened the sprouting and growth of it, until there stood a big old apple tree.  
It was unlike any other.  
The branches reached wide, and shadowed the entire hill.

It wore blossoms, like in spring, bore deep red fruits, like in summer and it's leaves were entirely golden in color, like in autumn.  
All at the same time.

Even though Ichigo had known how it would look like, to see it right in front of him now was something else.  
The beauty of it was astonishing.  
Planting it here was the right decision.

He walked around the hill, back to Shiro who also gazed at the big tree in awe.  
Ichigo looked back to his daughters grave.

"I finished my task. _Master_."  
A voice suddenly spoke in their backs.  
The _god_ jerked in surprise and Shiro jumped into a defensive stance.  
"The hell?!"  
He yelled.  
Ichigo patted him on the shoulder and he eased up.  
"Lucifer."  
The younger growled at the fallen angel, who also looked up at the tree.  
"To think that he still had this with him."  
Lucifer mumbled to himself.  
Ichigo pulled him from his musings by asking.  
"Shouldn't you be somewhere else?"

Now the angel looked at his chosen one.  
"As I said, I finished that task. Everything is done as you wanted. Though I must say..."  
Lucifer gazed upon him emotionless.  
"9 billion souls won't ever fit on this small land."  
He criticized him.  
"They don't need to. That's why I need you. To thin out the population, by choosing only the purest souls, before everything will be erased."  
Ichigo continued, by taunting the raven.  
"You are my Noah, so to say."  
He made a wide gesture and added.  
"One million human souls and ten thousand of vampires. Find those who are worthy to roam on the new earth. Lead them here, so that they can be reborn once I finished the ordeal."

Lucifer huffed and opposed clearly upset about Ichigo's demands.  
"That wasn't part of the deal! Let me free!"  
The younger blinked not understanding.  
"But you are free. I haven't shackled you down, like Satan. You can go wherever you want. All I want from you, is to clean up the mess you caused in the first place."  
He then shrugged as if he didn't care for Lucifer's demands.  
Why should he even.  
The raven had brought it upon himself and had to face the consequences now.  
Just. Like. A. Human.

"This is a false freedom! You're holding me on this planet, though you agreed to our deal!"  
Lucifer yelled and Ichigo frowned.  
"I don't care. You can go anywhere on this vast place. Enjoy that freedom."  
"You are acting just like Sataniel!"  
Lucifer wasn't entirely wrong with that, though was that a wonder?  
Satan had seduced humanity more than once, so some of his traits had to rub off on them.  
Still this statement made Ichigo grin widely at the fallen one.

"Oh poor Lucifer."  
He mocked him with a sing-song voice.  
"Did you forget? Humans are greedy little creatures. Give them one finger and they take your whole hand, as they say."  
Ichigo stepped directly in front of Lucifer and came dangerously close to his face.

Shiro watched the strange scene unfold before him.  
A cold breeze let him shiver, though no wind went over the area.  
His mate had lost a screw or two while he was in coma, or it was a side effect of his new powers.  
Anyways he acted like in his days, when he almost turned into a S.I.N.

Lucifer had pushed his left arm between him and Ichigo, in an attempt to get some distance in between them.  
But the orange head wouldn't have it.  
He grabbed that arm on it's wrist and hissed.  
"But I never was a human and never will I be one, right? So..."  
As he continued he pressed down on the wrist in his hand.  
"...give me a hand..."  
His grip tightened even more, and the bones began to creak under the pressure.  
Ichigo came real close to Lucifer's ear.  
With venom in his voice he whispered.  
"...and I swallow you whole."

Lucifer felt ice cold, even colder than in the place where Satan had held him captured.  
The angel really was second guessing his decision.  
He had thought that Ichigo was the calmer, more composed of the duo.  
Maybe that was a false first impression.  
With fear widened eyes he gazed upon cold, brown and blue orbs.  
He was lucky to have an ace up his sleeve.

Chapter 17  
End


	18. 18

Lucifer found a tactical retreat to be best, for the time being.  
So once he found his bearings again, he hurried to get away while stating.  
"I'll return to Honshu then."  
He had already turned his back to the duo and was about to open a passageway through the dimensions to get away as quickly as possible, when Ichigo stopped him.  
"No you don't."  
The raven halted his doings and let the opening gate collapse.  
He turned back around to Ichigo, whom he had really made a bad choice with.  
The angel was sure of it now.  
"Or...I...won't."

Ichigo went over to the tree and picked a young branch, from which he created a shepherd's crook.  
He walked back to Lucifer and handed him the staff with a big grin.  
The raven was sure that he just made it, to mock him even further.  
"Sine you already are here, I might as well give you an other task, temporarily."  
Lucifer hesitantly took the staff, which caused Ichigo to nod satisfied.  
"Good. Now my dear _Noah_ , go and collect those souls and while you're at it, if you happen to find anyone of Gabriel's children that survived lead them here. Also use this staff to cure earth from these man-made blemishes. Let nature return in their place, so that this planet will become a green paradise again."

Ichigo let go of the staff and added after thinking for a while.  
"Leave some clear spaces though. So that humanity easily can claim those lands to settle down there."  
The orangette really liked to mock him, and play the high and mighty.  
"Yes, _Master_."  
But two could play this game.

For now though he'd do as ordered to finally get away from the young one.  
As sudden as he appeared he was gone, leaving Ichigo, who cursed upon his new eye again, and Shiro, who just was to confused to react, on their own again.  
"What in the world was that just now? Who was the guy?"  
Latter eventually uttered toward his mate.  
"This. Was Lucifer. In flesh and blood."  
Ichigo told, while circling his shoulders to get rid of the tenseness that had build up in his body.  
"What exactly are you referring to, though. With ' _What was that_ ' ?"  
"I mean you! Almost skewering him with your eyes! And that intimidating behavior, like an alpha who has to put his pup in place."  
Ichigo combed through his hair, pushing some loose strands back.  
He lifted his gaze to the already darkening sky, with a calm expression he told.  
"Somehow...He rubs me the wrong way. Actually..."  
His face turned into an angry grimace.

"I fucking hate him."

The pale one just left that unanswered for now.  
He had to digest it first, so a change of topic was in need.  
"Uhhh...We, should get back, I guess. I don't really want to run into any _hunters_ at this time of day. I don't want to know what you would do with them, also."  
Ichigo's exes flickered at the mentioning of that title and the right corner of his lips twitched.  
"They surely don't want to either."  
For a third and last time Ichigo went to the tree and picked two of it's fruits, then joined his mate to go an head back.  
The orange head gave the graves a last look, breathed deep and said.  
"Alright, let's get back. I want to eat and rest."

"There in no blood bag left, though."  
Ichigo's stomach turned and made him fell sick at the thought of drinking blood.  
"No, actually I meant real food."  
"Huh?"  
"Listen. Despite these..."  
He showed his fangs, that still were in place.  
"I am no longer a vampire. That _curse_ was lifted from me. By the way I should do that for you and Hisana as well, once we're back."  
"You're telling me you want to turn us back into humans?"  
Ichigo stopped in his tracks, when they just had turned around a corner.  
"No."  
He waited for his mate to turn back around to him, and threw one of the two apples over to the pale one then.  
With a slight smile he said.  
"Demi-gods. So to say. You'll just be freed from Satan's curse, that makes you need blood as nourishment. Nothing more, nothing less."  
He then took up his pace again, with Shiro following suit.  
"So then what will nourish us? Common food certainly won't do."  
Ichigo looked over to him and pointed at the apple in his pale hand, then lifted the one in his own and took a big bite after he stated.

"Apples."

Chapter 18  
End


	19. 19

"Apples?"  
Shiro repeated disbelieving.  
"Yes apples. And believe me, this is the easy part."  
"What?"  
"Well, of course this isn't any kind of apple."  
Ichigo replied as he finished hi small meal.  
"You could guess from the look of the tree, right? This tree doesn't belong in our realm. Actually it existed just once here, when the bible doesn't tell tales."  
"You aren't telling me some kind of Garden Eden shit are you?"  
"Kind of."  
Shiro pointed back to the place they'd come from.  
"So you mean, we have to go back there every time we get hungry to pick those apples?"  
"No. I'll collect it's seeds and then plant it all over the isles."  
Shiro nodded.  
"Ok, then. What's supposed to be the hard part then?"  
"Ambrosia tea."  
The pale closed his eyes and frowned.  
"The hell, Ichigo?"

"I didn't make that up. This is what those _angels_ eat and drink. That tea has to be made from sea-ambrosia, that got picked, when it is wet with morning dew. I have no idea why. So we have to find one of these plants first and then seed them out at rivers ad lakes, 'cause it doesn't grow anywhere else."  
Ichigo blurted out, growing a bit frustrated over the theme.  
"So we will have to eat this as well?"  
The elder asked him, to clarify.

"Yes. Since, we'll belong to their kindred, somehow..., once that curse is... lifted. I don't know myself...Aaaargh! It's all so complicated! Just...Lucifer made us be something in between those angels and simple humans...Satan's curse took that characteristic somehow to make us into bloodsucking over-humans."  
The orangette took a deep breather.  
They had almost reached the storehouse area, so he guessed it was about time to finish this.  
"Anyways. This food will nourish us for about a month. So for the time being we're good with just this single tree. If you lust for it you can also eat anything else, just like before."  
Both of them descended the stairs to their lair, when Shiro agreed.  
"Fine. Just get enough of those apples then."  
Ichigo would, but first he'd rest a bit.

Talking about lusting for other food.  
He somehow desired some other fruits to feast on.  
Not that the apple hadn't sated him, it was just a craving he felt.  
Ichigo went over to the fridge and looked inside.  
His bad luck that it was empty.  
"Don't you have anything else here?"  
He asked Shiro who just shrugged.  
"This place was supposed to be functional, not a luxury apartment."

The orange head threw the fridge door close, clearly frustrated.  
"Damn it!"  
He then ripped the cloth off and used his powers to make a bowl of different fruits, out of the air molecules surrounding him.  
That action let him feel very tired in the aftermath.  
He swayed a bit, with that bowl in his hand.  
"Ichigo, are you ok?"  
The younger walked over to the small sitting corner and set the container down.  
"I think...I overdid it."  
Just then he fainted and Shiro just barely kept him from hitting the corner of the table with his head.

"Ichigo!"

Though, colliding with it, wouldn't have killed him anyways, that didn't mean they had to be careless.  
Shiro rested his mate on the sofa, which almost hadn't been used ever.  
He waited for his lover to come to again.  
The vampires stomach churned, so he grabbed some of the grapes that were in the bowl.  
They tasted wonderful, almost like ones he knew from his days in Italy.  
Shiro huffed.  
Everything somehow turned strange around his orange headed love.  
Still, maybe if he just let the youngster do as he planned, everything would finally quiet own and they could live in eternal peace.

Shiro imagined them to live in a nice, middle-sized cottage somewhere in a forest, full of those apple trees and a small river flowing silently behind that house.  
He huffed again.  
That sounded like from a fairytale.  
It seemed very nice and peaceful, though.  
Just the two of them.  
He then stopped short in his train of thoughts and looked over to the bed, that Hisana had fallen asleep in again.  
So...maybe the three of them?

Ichigo stirred awake, after almost half an hour had passed.  
He was a bit disoriented and grumpy.  
"This fucking eye."  
He cursed under his breath.  
"You'll get used to it."  
The orangette pinched the bridge of his nose.  
"Yea, maybe. I'll need it anyways."  
This sounded like Ichigo was referring to his plans.  
"What do you have in mind?"  
Shiro inquired.  
"Since hell is already gone, I guess heaven should be next."  
"How do you get there?"  
"Normally, only an angel can."  
"Lucifer?"  
"No. He has a task of his own."  
"Then how Ichigo? What is it about heaven and hell anyways? You should know now, shouldn't you?"  
Shiro asked for answers as he combed through his white strands of hair, completely at a loss.

"Ok. But this might take some time to explain. You are familiar with some of the human believes around heaven, hell and afterworld, right?"  
"I...guess."  
Ichigo created a sphere, much like Lucifer's, to show Shiro some details about the things he was about to tell.

Chapter 19  
End


	20. 20

"Look here."  
Ichigo said as the image of a universe came into view, with three earth like planets.  
Each belonging to a different galaxy.  
He began to tell a long story, that even reached humanity in parts and made up many mythologies and religious believes.

_-/-_

_In an other dimension, much like ours, there exist three planets, with a sun and a moon like our earth, just smaller._  
In fact, our galaxy is but an enlarged copy of one of them.  
On this planet , we call heaven now, live the angels.  
It's real name was lost with the first angels.  
So, the first angels had a lot of power, even more than the ones now and they decided to make a similar place like theirs, in a different dimension.  
They used their own DNA and took all their special traits, all that caused their powers away from it and so created the first protozoa*.  
They brought the life they created onto the planet they named earth and watched it bloom.

 _Some time those angels chose to direct that life's evolution, to bring forth a being that resembled themselves._  
That were us humans.  
We were chaotic and dumb, so they gave us wisdom.  
We gathered in groups and build villages, cities.  
We warred and strived for might, always seeking that which we lacked.  
That which the angels had only.  
The angels watched and chose to show themselves, several times, which led into the believes and religions of various tribes, like Celts, Roman, Egypts etc.

 _Those first angels ruled equally over their and our home._  
Only one of them stood above them all, their allfather.  
Every cultures downfall on earth was caused by a shift in powers among the angels.  
Sometimes because they became tired of their tasks, sometimes because there was a revolt.

 _And one of these revolts let into the outcasting of Sataniel and fellow angels._  
They were imprisoned on a different galaxy's "earth", that isn't as green, but more like our planet mars.  
We call it hell.  
From then on the angels decided that this place should also be a punishment for those human souls who lived a bad live and that the outcasts had to care for those souls and clean them from their sins, before they'd return into the circle of rebirth.  
That also meant, they needed a place for the good souls and more angels to take care of these.  
So they used the third galaxy's earth, it's called Elysium.  
The angel Samael got chosen to rule this place and judge every soul that came there.  
For a long time the angels ruled equally then, until one day another revolt arose.

 _Metathron murdered all of the ruling angels by his own and rose to the throne as the single ruler._  
He installed a hierarchy among the angels, that was based on the might they wield.  
The highest ranking ones were given special tasks by Metathron.  
Like Gabriel, for example who serves as a messenger to the humans.  
Samael subjugated to Metathron and could hold his position on Elysium.

_There also was Lucifer._

_Metathron liked him most, for certain reasons and made him the guardian of the earthen sun.  
Michael who was jealous of Lucifer, outsmarted the high-seraphim and send him to earth after he stripped him of most of his powers._

_About the connection between our dimension and theirs, the north-men came up with a rather fitting explanation._  
There exist paths that the angels and souls use.  
One is constantly open between earth and Elysium, for souls to pass through after they left their human vessel.  
Between heaven ad hell there doesn't exist a path, so that the outcasts can't run heaven over.  
To get to heaven or hell, from Elysium you need one of the gatekeeper angels to open a path, or even Samael who has a key of his own.  
From heaven to earth, the higher angels can make their own path.  
This is for them only.  
In hell, Sataniel got his hands on one of these keys somehow and with it he can make a direct path to earth.  
That he uses to come over and find anyone to make a contract with him, and collect the souls of such.

 _As for the angels outward appearance._  
They look like us, or maybe we look like them?  
The believe that they have wings though, isn't entirely wrong.  
On heaven, they wear wings, that are consisted of the same energy that souls are made of.  
The more power an angel wields the bigger and shinier are those wings.  
Here on earth though, there isn't such a dense concentration of this energy, so their wings mostly aren't visible to simple humans.  
As long as the angels don't give their all to impress their little creations.

_-/-_

With this Ichigo ended the long explanation and left Shiro speechless.  
The pale just stared at the sphere, that displayed the whole image of those two very different dimensions and the paths that connected them.

Chapter 20  
End  
_______

* protozoa = single-celled organisms

Image to this long explanation on my DA


	21. 21

"So the only way to access this direct paths is with an angels key?"  
Shiro asked and Ichigo nodded.  
"That, or with the help of a gatekeeper."  
The pale thought about the told a bit then wondered.  
"Haven't you said you went to hell and destroyed it?"  
"Yes."  
"How did you get there without a key?"  
Just then it dawned on Ichigo.  
He blinked a few times, frozen in his current posture.  
"That way...was open. I didn't even think about it and just stormed after Lucifer's presence in my fury."  
"Maybe then Lucifer left it open? I don't quite trust, that he really wants to vanish."  
Shiro further inquired to his mate.  
"How do we even get one of those keys?"

Ichigo smiled widely and pulled out a necklace he wore under his upper garments, on which a crystal hung.  
Inside of it swirled a smoke like substance.  
"I took Satan's key. Hopefully I can manipulate it to work on heavens path."  
He then looked at the sphere and erased the image of Hell's galaxy in it.  
"This place is gone and all souls will be forced to reside in Elysium, I bet some of those of hell even found a way to move over there. The place must be in chaos. Perfect for us, since the angels attention will be somewhere else."  
The orangette spoke on, with a deep frown in his face, as he was thinking about a tactic.  
"So you plan on invading the place?"  
Ichigo nodded.  
"Later. Right now, I plan on granting you your new life. I will need your aid and that curse is a big hindrance."

He caught Shiro's blank look.  
Had this been too much info after all?  
"Uhhh...yea. If you don't strain yourself to much with this. I mean you just passed out on me."  
Ichigo sighed, his mate wasn't wrong, but he had to test his limits.  
Better now than later when it would cause big problems.  
He rose from his seat, let the sphere vanish and Shiro followed after him.  
"Wait a moment. Can you explain one more thing? That part with the DNA, are you saying that all their power is actually written in their genes?"  
Ichigo sighed.

"Yea, Basically said the angels have a much more complex DNA than a human and in it lays the source of their power. They are just alchemists, so to say. Lucifer added a fragment of, let's call it the angel-gene which made up the vampires powers. Satan tempered with this and inserted a mutation that causes the vampirism. Gabriel instead removed this mutation again, took the angel-gene and inserted it to the slayers soul, so that it connects with the body that it is incarnated in. That also is why normally a slayer can only incarnate in a human body."  
"Okay then you basically remove that mutation right? Will I be immortal like you then? And will I become a god?"  
Shiro asked a bit insecure about what was to come next.  
"No. All that will happen, is that you don't need the blood as food anymore and that your powers might raise a bit. Also, immortality doesn't mean that getting injured doesn't hurt at all."

Ichigo shortly stopped then spoke on.  
"Getting impaled or shot hurts like hell."  
He joked and glanced over at Hisana, who had turned onto her side.  
Then he concentrated on his mate again and with his powers twisted the characteristics of Satan's 'curse' back to the original state they should have had.  
The only thing that he didn't change were the fangs, he liked them too much.  
Shiro wasn't so happy with it, until Ichigo explained, that this should be a trait to differ them from normal humans.  
So that those humans knew they belonged to the ruling kin.

"How do you feel?"  
"Not very different, though a bit hungry."  
A small voice in their back then grumbled.  
"What about me?"  
Hisana had woken from her slumber.  
She looked a lot better than before.  
Like she was about to make her peace with the happenings.  
"You too of course."  
Ichigo did the same with her and she thanked him with a big smile.  
Now those two were the first of the new demi-gods.

The orangette wondered if Hisana would even wake the powers she would have had, if she had gone through her _puberty_.  
"I feel great!"  
The girl chirped happily.  
Ichigo was glad that she had lightened up that much and was acting more becoming to her age.  
Just then Hisana spun around and looked to the exit.  
"Someone's calling for help."  
Shiro and his mate looked at each other.  
They hadn't heard anything.  
Hisana ran to the exit and up the stairs, before they could even stop her.  
So they ran after her.

Outside both of them looked anywhere for her, before they found her a good ways outside of the storehouse district.  
She was crouching down and looking intently at something.  
Ichigo slowly approached her and caught sight of a mall pup sitting in front of the girl.  
It waved happily with it's tail and heckled.  
"Hisana?"  
The girl looked up to him, a scowl displayed on her face.  
"I...heard someone call...I'm sure. But there is only her."  
"Her?"  
The orangette wondered.  
"I..."  
Hisana looked back to the puppy.  
"Somehow...There was a voice in my head. I think it's hers. She told me that her mommy went to look for food and didn't come back."

It was miraculous, really.  
For Hisana to waken her abilities directly after Ichigo had lifted the curse.  
Hisana must be very gifted.  
Shiro came over to them, he had overheard what the girl had said to Ichigo and told.  
"Maybe the mother got caught in some crossfire. If she had gone into town."  
Hisana picked the snow-white pup up.  
It's hind legs hung down loosely, and the animal didn't seem too happy with this.  
"Can I keep her?"  
The girl begged with big sparkling eyes and hugged the mammal tightly.

Ichigo was about to melt under her gaze.  
The whole image of her with the small dog looked so cute.  
Shiro instead was a bit more level headed.  
"You aren't really considering to take in that dog, on top of sheltering the kid?"  
Ichigo looked over to Shiro, eyes soft and sparkling.

"But Shiro..."  
He turned around to him and said in a whiny voice.  
"...look at the cuteness!"

Shiro sighed and combed through his hair.  
"Fine...whatever. You can keep the dog, Hisana."  
Hisana looked sternly at the pale and pouted.  
"Her name is Koori* and she isn't a dog."  
The she added seriously.

"She is a wolf."

Chapter 21  
End  
_______  
  
*Koori (氷) = Ice

there is a myth about a white wolf in japan :  
According to legend, Prince Yamato Takeru-the son of Japan's 12th emperor-got lost in the forests of Mount Mitake after a demon transformed itself into a stag and led the prince astray. Lost and cold, the prince wandered on the mountain until a giant white wolf appeared and led him to safety.

I also strongly believe that I read somewhere of another myth, that a white wolf appeared before a samurai and his army was victorious in a following battle.


	22. 21.5

**Shiro's POV**

I felt like my head would explode from all the information Ichigo just had given me.  
Yet I couldn't help the questions bursting out an demanding answers.  
In the end I got a headache as a thank you.  
Who would have thought that our roots were so complex and fucked up.  
Be it human, slayer _or_ vampire.  
These stupid angels playing with us like we were some kind of puppet.  
I was getting a bit angry to tell the least and I could understand why Ichigo wanted them gone.  
But now he decided to lift that _curse_ from me.

He was just looking at me, after he had glanced over toward the girl.  
Before I knew it I felt a heavy pressure in my chest, like someone squeezed my heart.  
It lasted not even one second, after that warmth spread through my entire body.  
I relaxed and my mind drifted off, at least so long until I found, that Ichigo's mind was completely unprotected.  
Whatever he was doing let him bare himself to me.  
I found out what he did to that _hunter_ guy and that he was both unsatisfied and disgusted.  
He couldn't hide his emotions as well.  
Ichigo felt insecure, determined and sad.

I on the other hand grew a bit uncomfortable since I was sneaking on him like that, even if I didn't really intend to.  
As I tried to block myself from his incoming flood of emotions, I felt like something peered at me from the deep shadows of Ichigo's psyche.  
It reared up in front of me and for a moment I thought I was looking upon a fiery dragon that fought against its chains.  
The warm feeling from before was leaving and ice cold shivers ran along my spine.  
What I was looking at was Ichigo's rage and hatred, so strong and primal that it suffocated me.

I wondered how he was able to hide it from me before.

Then I halted.  
Was it possible, that he was unaware of it himself?  
For all I knew, this rage wasn't allowed to ever break free.

It had to be subsided.  
Abraded like a mountain.  
Slowly.

Ichigo seemed to be finished as he asked me how I felt.  
All I could point out was my slight hunger, even though that had been there before.  
For the past five years it had been my constant companion.  
The fangs bothered me, since I was unable to hide them now, even if they were smaller than my original ones.  
But Ichigo wanted to make us visibly special so be it.  
He turned to the protesting Hisana and I took the chance to calm and listen into myself.

Nothing seemed different really.  
Just, maybe I felt lighter?  
Like I was floating actually.  
And younger, if that was possible for my not aging body.  
Before I could even talk about it, we were chasing after Hisana who had rushed out.

What shall I say?  
One thing just adds onto the other and now I was looking into two human and one dog face, begging me to welcome the fuzz-ball into our family.  
I felt to tired for this, so whatever.  
I allowed the dog.

And then...  
The next punch in the face.

It's a fucking wolf!

Chapter 21.5  
End


	23. 22

Hisana had run back to the hideout happily, with Shiro and Ichigo following slowly behind her.  
The older was a bit grumpy that his mate had been taken over so easily by the girl.  
Even more so, when one considered that just hours before she tried to kill him.

But who was he to talk?

He wasn't much different from the orangette.  
Seeing Hisana as a small version of the mischievous Rukia.  
For years they had been her fathers, though Ichigo had an even stronger tie to her.  
Shiro couldn't change the past, but he could try to make the best of their future.

So now, they owned a dog.  
"She's a wolf."  
Ichigo corrected him in a whispering voice.  
"Since when are you snooping around in my head?"  
Shiro grumbled at him.  
"I don't have to. You're basically screaming."  
The young god answered and poked the pale on the temple, who then huffed.

"I thought wolves were long extinct in Japan. How come that pup popped up here then?"  
"Maybe they hid themselves just very well."  
Shiro watched Hisana jump around with the small animal in her arms.  
"Do you really let her keep it? It's still a wild animal."  
The girl let her friend down now and they played chase on their way.  
"If she raises her well, she can become a good companion and guardian for her. I'd say giving it a try is worth it."  
Shiro let out a short laughter.  
"Fine. But if it snaps for one of us just once it goes back int the woods. Cute pup or not. I am the alpha here."  
Ichigo couldn't help but grin at the last part and afterward rose an eyebrow seductively.  
"Oh really? Are you?"

They reached the storeroom and descended the stairs.  
"Yes I am!"  
Ichigo mocked him further.  
"I think you forgot where you stand in the hierarchy right now."  
"Don't come at me like that mister _Lucifer-made-me-a-god-so-I-am-the-boss-now_ ."  
Shiro bickered, and Ichigo burst out in whole heartedly laughter.  
"Ok, ok. I give. I'm not cut out to be a leader anyway."  
He submitted and dropped to the sofa.  
"That's what you think."

Hisana had moved to a secluded area of the room with her new friend to play a bit more.  
"What do you mean?"  
Ichigo wanted to know from his mate.  
"That you don't have to _lead_ , because everyone naturally follows after you."  
The orange head had no answer to this.  
He always had thought that he dragged others with him, if they wanted or not.  
Not that they happily followed after him.  
That was why he thought of Shiro as the better leader and needed him by his side in the future to do what Ichigo was incapable of.  
Only together they made the perfect rulers for a world that would start anew.

Then again, what exactly did he plan for this world?  
All he knew, was that he wanted Japan to become the land where only him and his kin would live.  
For it to be inaccessible for normal humans, at least as long as those were alive.  
But he couldn't just leave humanity on their own.  
They certainly would return to old habits.  
Cruelty, war and slaughter.  
He needed to keep them as peaceful as possible.  
So, he'd had to keep them from developing weapons.  
Better not allow them to come up with any modern technologies at all.  
Everything they'd make from steel should crumble in their hands instantly.  
To ensure that, he needed people to guard them.

Ichigo remembered the story Shiro once told of his home village.  
That was right.  
One of his demi-gods should be the leader for one of the human villages.  
"Now you are screaming, Ichigo"  
He was interrupted in his thoughts.  
"Sorry."

Shiro had sat down next to him without him noticing.  
"It's ok. Your plan sounded good. Having one of ours as a guardian and right speaker. But I think even them would want to come _home_ once in a while. Without modern transport ways, that could become a problem. If you want to travel fast, that is."  
Shiro was right with this.  
Ichigo needed time to figure out a solution.  
For now though, it was a good thing that Lucifer was already out there, re-greening the planet and collecting souls.  
"You know what? We have all time in the world to brood over the little details, once the menaces are out of the way."

Ichigo moved closer to his lover.  
"Right now..."  
He whispered to his ear.  
"...I got something else on my mind."

Chapter 22  
End


	24. 23

Elsewhere, to be exact at the dock-house where the remnants of Cang's carcass rested, one of _the hunters_ officers was ordered to check in on Cang since he hadn't reported in a while.  
The chief had grown impatient and wanted some progress.  
So now a young officer stood bend over in the hole of the broken down wall and puked out his lunch.  
The sight and the _stench_ was too much for him.  
He had already seen how those vampires died once, but that wasn't comparable with this at all.  
A rat, with strangely dirtied fur suddenly ran past his feet as he wiped off his mouth and took the radio.  
He turned his back to the scene, so he could concentrate on the report.

"Kurumadani calling. I have news on the captain."  
"Main station here. How is he?"  
The officer glanced over his shoulder, wrong decision.  
His stomach twisted and he barely suppressed a gag.  
"Urgh...He...he's dead. Must have been some hours. Can't say for sure. What's left of him is being cooked by a lamp in the center of the house. Am standing in the doorway so to stay. Won't go any closer... it smells awful."  
The officer blabbered into the radio.  
"Please be more exact. What's the cause of death?"  
"I can't see clearly, but there is something ….on his stomach? Wait I take a picture. Just get someone over to clean the mess, or I'll burn down the whole place."

Kurumadani took his mobile phone and made a photo which he send over to the main station.  
Through the radio he could hear a clear confirmation that it reached them.  
"Ohhhh...god! No...uurrrrgghhh."  
"I...need the toilett!"  
"Ughh...Who did this?!"  
Several voices spoke all together.  
Some dope must have made the investigation a public event.  
Served them right.

"Kurumadani?"  
"Yes?"  
"Just...just set it on fire and come back..."  
"Understood."  
Said and done, soon the whole place was ablaze and the shine of the flames could be seen far in the destroyed city.  
It even reached the glass facade of the V.A.S.T. Towers remnants and reflected eerily on it.  
There where just about ten of the seventy stories left, that could still be used, if one dared to enter.

In the tenth floor stood a man with light blue eyes and blonde hair.  
"So he failed. I really thought he was up to the task."  
He turned around to a desk on which an artificial miniature tree stood.  
It held six glass orbs, four of them seemed to have something in them that emitted a faint light and two looked clear.  
One of those clear ones though, was broken.  
"So I'll have to send an other one."

-/-

Back at Shiro's and Ichigo's, the young god had clad their sitting place in a secluded room.  
They were kissing each other wildly, which didn't make it any less passionate.  
Shiro began to tug on his mates clothes.  
He had removed the belt and now struggled with the buttons of the jacket.  
Eventually he managed to open them and tossed the piece of clothing away, quickly followed by the shirt.  
Ichigo did the same, though a bit faster since he knew how to undo the buttons.  
Shiro grabbed him tightly and pushed him over.

"I'm so happy that you're back."  
The pale whispered and kissed him deeply  
Their erections brushed each other through their pants and Ichigo bucked his hips up wanting more of the sensation.  
"Me too."  
Both removed their pants and enjoyed each others naked skin on another.  
They took things slowly, like it was their first time all over.

Shiro wandered, with small kisses, down along Ichigo's neck over his chest then past the orangettes hard dick along the inside of his right thigh until he reached the calf.  
There he stopped and looked up.  
Ichigo was squirming impatiently.  
"You're killing me, Shiro."  
The pale moved back to those rosy lips and nibbled on them.  
He gently pinched the lower lip with one of his fangs.  
"Turn around."  
Shiro hushed.

Ichigo did and lifted his waist, for Shiro to have easy access.  
The elder admired the sight.  
His mate had become even more beautiful.  
The skin was soft and tender, his build slender but still muscular and his strands of orange hair that were slightly longer in the back and curled at the nape of his neck as he bend down now.  
Shiro was at his limit.  
Without delay he pushed his burning flesh deep into Ichigo.  
The orangette felt so tight around him.

Shiro thrust his hips slowly at first, then steadily pushed stronger and more erratic into his mate.  
His rod reached even deeper and brushed Ichigos sweet spots.  
The younger moaned heavily, enjoying the waves of ecstasy rush over him and his climax drawing closer with each of it.  
They didn't last long.  
Both their desire for one another devoured them in just a few minutes.  
The elder was spend and dropped to the sofa, next to Ichigo who had made some space for him.  
The younger ones eye cover had come off in their fierce romping and those two-colored eyes now looked upon the pale with a sparkle in them.

In fact, it seemed like he blue one was glowing.  
"I'm not sated yet."  
Ichigo said and rolled Shiro onto his back, so he could sit himself on his lap.  
The younger circled his hips seductively on Shiro's limp member.  
To the vampires surprise it answered Ichigo's call.  
Within seconds it stood straight and ready for Ichigo to take.  
The orange head positioned himself over the burning flesh and pushed down.  
Somehow his insides felt even tighter than before and Shiro's dick reached even deeper.  
It felt so great how Ichigos insides curled around him and brushed his sensitive spots with every movement.

Their love making was a lot slower and more intense.  
Ichigo worked him seductively.  
Eventually Shiro sat up and took his lover into a loving embrace.  
He kissed his neck down to the collar.  
That made Ichigo clamp down on him several times.  
Shiro was close.  
He bucked his hips some times, until the orgasm finally hit him.  
Ichigo also released moments later.  
Te pale rested his head against the others chest, waiting for the blankness to leave his mind.  
A kiss to the top of his head let him look up into a happy face.  
"I love you."  
"I love you too."

"Let's go to bed, shall we? I really could need some sleep now."  
Ichigo suggested and Shiro averted his eyes and mumbled.  
"There is no other bed than yours."  
No way in all that was holy, would he lay down in that again.  
"Where did you sleep all this time?"  
"In the chair, if at all."  
Ichigo rolled his eyes.  
"I'm not spared anything, am I?"  
He picked up his pants and put them on, then with his powers restructured the underground hideout to become a small cozy flat, with a bathroom, a living room with open kitchen and a separate bedroom for Hisana, beside one for the two of them.  
"Now let's go to bed."  
He led his pale lover to their room and they fell dead tired into the bed.

Shiro soon fell asleep, while Ichigo next to him mused about all that was ahead, and some things of the past.  
Mostly, about why the angels just hadn't lifted the vampire curse from all of them, when they could do it with his first incarnation.  
They easily could have done that.  
And why was his soul able to incarnate into partially vampiric flesh.  
Maybe he just was an odd case altogether.  
Then how should he act out his plans?  
Just hunt every _hunter_ and erase them to lure out the boss, or looking for him directly in the places he had seen in Cang's mind?

Ichigo absently stroked over his eternal mark on his left chest.  
He had a lot to do and so much more time to pass.  
His finger circled over the dead tree one last time, before he gave Shiro a kiss onto his white strands of hair and cuddled up to him.  
Ichigo really felt sleepy now.

Chapter 23  
End


	25. 24

Two rather uneventful days went by, which Ichigo used to get used to his other sight and push the bounds of his new powers.  
On the side of the _hunters_ though distraught and fear spread as they were confronted with the spell Ichigo put on the landscape.  
Many fell victim to it, since they got caught off guard or even while asleep.  
Even regular residents of the town and some of the remaining vampires weren't spared.

Now on the morning of the third day Ichigo woke from the sound of loud laughing and a high pitched barking.  
Shiro though didn't seem to notice anything, so the younger sneaked out of bed to let his mate have some more rest.  
He went out of the bedroom to look for the ones who were making that ruckus.  
"Hey, hey! Tune it down, both of you. We are still hiding from the enemy."  
Hisana who was happily running around the seating area in the living room and the wolf pup that chased her, stopped on the spot like they had been turned into statues.  
The girl slowly turned around and awkwardly looked at Ichigo.  
"Sorry, Ichigo onii-chan."  
It had been very long since anyone had called him that and it filled him with pride and a little sadness at the same time.  
"Just be a bit more quiet."  
"Okay."  
Ichigo nodded and went to the bathroom.

After washing the sleep from his face, he was just about to step into the shower, when something prompted him to halt and take a closer look at himself in the mirror.  
Was it just his imagination or seemed the blood moon of his marking duller than usually?  
The orange head frowned and just then someone knocked on the door.  
"Ichi, you in there?"  
It was Shiro.  
He probably noticed his absence in bed.  
"Uh, yea, one second."  
Ichigo brushed the issue aside and let Shiro into the bathroom.  
"Morning."  
He mumbled to the elder as he opened the door.  
"Morning. Is there space for two?"  
"Sure."  
Shiro gave him a short kiss as he came in and asked afterward.  
"How are you feeling today?"  
"A lot better."  
The pale nodded and noticed the running shower.  
"I'll get under that now, if you allow."  
"Alright."  
Clothes rustled, a glass door slid open and just before Shiro closed it behind him he added.  
"Why not join me? You made this real spacious."  
Ichigo agreed and entered after him.

They enjoyed the hot shower and just when Ichigo turned his back to his mate to let the hot water run over his back, mentioned closed in on him.  
"Are you trying to seduce me, Ichigo?"  
Actually, not.  
There was running to much through Ichigos mind at the moment, to even be able to build any lust for his mates flesh right now,  
Shiro though pressed himself against Ichigo, his erection clearly prominent.  
Tender arms grabbed around the orange head, one holding onto his waist, the other wandering down to his limp penis.  
The pales erection rubbed against Ichigos butt an his right hand gently stoked him.  
Whatever troubled his mind before, was pushed far, far back as he couldn't help but get distracted by the sweet caresses of his love.  
Lust welled up in his blood and so he switched places wit Shiro and faced the wall, while he steadied himself against the same.  
He presented himself more than willingly to Shiro.  
"Take me...now."  
How could the elder say no to this sight.  
He positioned himself and thrust into the tight hole.  
With a steady pace he rocked themselves to climax.  
Ichigo breathed heavily and stood on shaky legs afterward.  
He had to turn around and lean with his back against the wall, or else his legs would have given out under him.  
Shiro looked at him really satisfied and lovingly.  
Also it seemed that he knew that Ichigo had a lot on his mind.  
How couldn't he, they were bonded in more than one way.

"You don't have to worry so much. Everything will turn out right, Ichigo. Lucifer, me, even Hisana will help you as much as we can. You don't have to shoulder everything on your own. You can depend on us."  
Ichigo smiled at the other, who always found the right words at the right time somehow.  
"You're right."  
There was something, though that needed to be talked about.  
Something that bothered him much more, than the coming of their new world.  
The orange head left the shower, followed by Shiro.

"I'm actually a bit scared."  
"Of what?"  
He picked up a towel to dry himself and answered.  
"Myself."  
Ichigo turned to Shiro and looked into confused eyes.  
"That I, with all this power, will misuse it and in the end won't be any better than those angels who created us."  
He paused for a moment, thinking on how to explain.  
"Shiro, all I want is peace and I try to hurt as less people as possible, since I hate to do so. But on the same time there is something in me that wants to suppress, to dominate, everyone who goes against me, by whatever means. I'm scared that it got stronger, just because _I_ got more power now."  
Again he paused.  
"I send you away when I saved you and Hisana, because I knew I couldn't suppress this rage, after all that this Cang guy did to you two and I didn't want you to see this disgusting side of mine."  
Ichigo looked deeply into Shiro's golden eyes and asked of him.  
"From now on, please be he scale to hold me in balance whenever my actions seem unjust to you."  
Shiro closed his eyes and breathed deeply.  
"Ichigo..."  
He looked at him again.  
"That's what I've always done. I know of the _rage_ in you and if it rose up again now I will do everything to help you. And even if you kept me away from the direct exposure of your actions against that _hunter_ captain...Ichigo, I have seen it in your mind."  
Shiro picked up his underwear now and continued.  
"You're right to think that it was cruel and gruesome, but you also acted quite on the christian way."  
He lifted Ichigos head by his chin, after the one had looked down in shame.  
"An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Everything was paid back in the same amount. From now on though, your rage should be turned toward the one behind it all, since those humans are just stray sheep who are being influenced by someone who wants to eradicate us."  
"Thank you, Shiro."

Ichigo breathed those words, glad that his mate was so caring and understanding.  
"I haven't done anything."

Chapter 24  
End


	26. 25

The chief of _the hunters_ had gone to the lowest level of the tower.  
In that basement he had prepared for a plan B.  
Obviously he wouldn't get his own hands dirty for it.  
Therefor he put one of his other very good officers to the task.

"So, how is he fairing McAllon?"  
"If you wait any longer you'll lose him, Sir. He won't last an other day."  
The female captain Meninas McAllon, answered while standing straightened in front of the door she guarded.  
She's a tall, slender woman with long wavy hair of pink color and short bangs framing her forehead.  
Her green eyes opposed greatly to her hair-color and the all white uniform underlined that.  
"Very well. You are dismissed."  
"Sir."  
McAllon saluted and left the chief with the one waiting behind that door.  
The blonde waited until the elevator doors closed in his back, then he unlocked the door and stepped inside.

It was one of the former cells that were used for S.I.N. Who waited for their judgment.  
In it sat a man, bound to a chair who wasn't to far from becoming one of those himself.  
The _hunter_ stepped close to him and looked upon his bend over figure.  
The vampire breathed heavily, sweated a lot and was unable to hide his vampire nature anymore.  
When he looked up to his punisher, his big pupils dilated.

"How are you feeling, fallen child?"  
It took some time before he even got an answer to this, but it was calm and collected.  
"As if you care. All you're trying to do is to drive me into a corner, so I do after your bidding."  
The blonde snickered.  
"Well said for someone, who looks at me like a junkie at his next fix."  
He brought a second seat from a dark corner and sat down, pulled a small knife from one of his pockets and cut into the palm of his hand.  
All he needed to do was wait a bit more now and the vampire would submit to his instincts and become obedient to him.  
It took just a few minutes until his opponent was ready.  
The vampire fought against his bindings, but was lacking the strength to break free.  
Eventually he barely brought out a question.

"What do you want?"  
The chief smiled widely.  
"Now we are talking."  
The vampire had tilted his head back and when he looked back to his human tormentor he seemed a bit clearer again.  
"Shall I kill my own kin for you?"  
"No. Just one. Find him and bring me his head."  
The blonde came closer to the other.  
"In return, I can free you from that curse and make you human again."  
Eyes widened in disbelieve.  
"What?"

There was no answer, just silence.  
The _hunter_ was waiting for him to decide and let him wage his options.  
So, did he want to become human again?  
After all he had agreed to be turned.  
His world had been turned upside down after encountering that pureblood Shiro.  
His life hadn't been bad, just bothersome and lonely at times.  
Was he really willing to throw everything away again?  
To live a life that would inevitably end in maybe another fifty years or less?  
In a world that lay in ruins?  
But...this hunger...this smell...  
If he wouldn't get a meal fast, he'd die.  
Facing his hunger all reason was lost.  
He just wanted it to be gone.

"Who shall I kill?"  
Again the human smiled and rose from his seat, unbound the vampire, knowing that he was save from an attack, now that he had his will broken.  
"Come with me and we'll talk about the details, while you sate yourself."  
The vampire obeyed.

Upstairs he emptied two IV's worth of blood, before he asked about his target.  
"Who is it now? Tell me before I might change my mind."  
"And do what? Kill me instead? That would leave you in this miserable and unforgivable state"  
The vampire eyed him, then slit his eyes asking.  
"Who exactly are you anyways?"  
"Jugram Hashwaldt. The one chosen by god himself to cleanse earth from you vermin."  
"Hmph. And who are you after in particular?"  
Jugram sat down behind his table, with the artificial tree and flicked against the broken one.

"The original child of Gabriel."

The vampires jaw fell open.  
He gasped and just whispered the name in shock.

"Kurosaki."

Chapter 25  
End


	27. 26

Jugram nodded.  
"I see your memories ate still intact."  
"Why him? What is he to you?"  
"It's nothing of your concern. Kill him and you'll get your reward."  
The vampire huffed.  
"if you know so much about us, then you should know that's impossible. He is my maker and I can't disobey him. I can't _kill_ him."  
Jugram rose from his seat, walked around the table and stepped in front of the vampire.  
"You will."  
The blonde touched him in the middle of his collar with the index finger of his gloved right hand.  
"With this, I'll also make sure you won't double-cross me."  
Just as he said this a strange sign burned into the vampires flesh.  
He then turned away from the blood sucker, who was fighting against the pain.

"Before you go now, pick up our weapons. They are stored on the third floor. And take a uniform while you're at it."  
The Vampire stood straight and looked expressionless at the blonde.  
He rested his right hand flat on his left chest and bowed.  
"Yes, sir."  
With that he left.

Jugram looked out of the window again.  
Far away he saw the landscape changing.  
Buildings crumbled and nature replaced them with quickly growing trees of multiple kind.  
He felt the angelic powers radiating from it.  
"Lucifer?"  
He asked aloud and inwardly cursed upon the fallen one.

When had he crawled back from hell?  
Why was he even on earth?

"I won't let you interfere. This time you'll meet your end by my hands."  
Or maybe by the hands of his new toy.  
If that one was strong enough for it.

Mentioned toy, had gone on his search for his main target.  
As a brethren of the orangette he should be able to sense his presence, but there was nothing.  
Either he was hunting a ghost, or the man found a way to hide from any sensing ability.  
The vampire felt torn inside.  
In several ways.

Being a vampire wasn't all that bad, apart from the terrible hunger.  
Becoming human again meant to die eventually, but he could use his remaining life to help rebuild this place then.  
Killing Kurosaki for it...was an affordable price to pay.  
But he can't disobey his maker.  
He also couldn't disobey Jugram anymore, now that he placed this thing on him.  
He could feel that it was true.  
' _For the sake of peace, kill Kurosaki._ '  
The vampire thought to himself  
But he was his friend!  
It felt like two personalities fought inside his head and it was driving him crazy.  
While those two ' _alter-ego_ ' argued with one another, he staggered on.  
Without a hint or trail to help him where to look for the orange headed vampire.

Not until he set foot on moist soil, where there should be concrete.  
A mighty power radiated from it.  
Deep within that lingered something very familiar.  
"Kurosaki."  
The vampire followed the trail of the spreading back to the point where it had begun.  
He looked around to find a place where his enemy had come from, before he did his magic trick.  
There was nothing.  
The trail ended here.  
He was lost again.  
So he took the south direction and scanned the surrounding area for possible hides.  
He was so focused on Ichigo that he failed to notice the other lingering presence.  
Luckily for Ichigo and his mate.

At mentioned both hideout, the spell had given birth to a healthy forest above them.  
The entrance of their underground apartment lay under a floor of moss.  
While the change had happened, the ground ha shaken violently, which frightened the wolf pup so much that it cowered into Hisana's side and whined loudly, while the girl watched the ceiling in fear.  
Ichigo had went to them, rested a hand on Hisana's small head and just looked at her.  
His calmness transpired to the girl and even the pup eased up a bit.  
He explained what was happening to her and promised that they would take a look once things calmed down.

The time for this had come and so they climbed up the stairs, opened the secret door and found themselves surrounded by many trees.  
Some were so big as if they were already hundreds of years old, others small and very young.  
In between grew ferns, bushes, flowers and mushrooms.  
All in all they looked upon a healthy forest.  
Their hideout was centered in a small clearing.  
Behind them even a small stream flowed silently through it.

Shiro looked at it in wonder, since it almost looked like he imagined it.  
Just the house was missing.

Hisana had run past them and onto the moss.  
She took off her shoes to feel how this strange greenery felt under her feet.  
Ichigo bet, she never had been that close to a forest in her life.  
Japan hadn't had much forests to begin with, nowadays.

"Don't think I didn't catch your thoughts just because I was out of it."  
The orange top stated to his mate as they watched Hisana and Koori play around.  
"So you made this on purpose."  
"I gave what I started a certain direction. Soon we can build that house, from the trees surrounding us now and in their place we'll plant the golden trees."  
"Golden trees?"  
Ichigo looked over to his mate, blinked and then realized.  
"Oh! Yeah, you can't know that. This is the name the apple trees go by on heaven."  
Shiro nodded and couldn't help but smile when he thought about Ichigo's plans.  
"You are an idiot."  
"Why?"  
"We don't even know who's behind everything and you act like you won the war already. Ever thought about the possibility that it's those angels themselves? Are you sure that you could beat them?"  
"If I can trust Lucifer's words then, yes."  
"I hope he told the truth then."

They left it at that, enjoyed the fresh air and sat down near the stream.  
Not much later a joyful Hisana came running toward them and jumped into Ichigo's lap.  
"It's so beautiful, Ichigo-nii! Will it be everywhere? Can we go and look at all the flowers?"  
Ichigo smiled at her and patted her head.  
"Maybe a bit later. This place is safer now."  
She hugged him tightly and giggled.

Shiro wondered, how she had made that 180° turn all of a sudden.  
"You really haven't done anything to her memories?"  
Instantly the smile on Ichigo's face was gone.  
He looked a bit sad on the girls top of hair, then told Shiro mentally.  
'I have. But I only removed the part where that fucker mutilated her.'  
So that's how it was.  
She couldn't remember that she ever experienced that pain and despair, so her hate towards them fell flat.  
Maybe even the sadness of being deserted by Rukia had gone away, since she got saved by Ichigo.  
Although Rukia never deserted her anyways, but the girl couldn't have known that until now.

"Ichigo-nii?"  
"Hm?"  
"Next time, can I come with you to Rukia-nee? I want to decorate her grave with loooots of those nice flowers."  
She looked at him with big shiny eyes and Ichigo smiled slightly again.  
This time, he hugged her.  
"Of course."

Chapter 26  
End


	28. 27

It had gotten late and with the night shadows, the changing landscape had crept upon the last _hunter_ bases all around earth.  
The few who had seen it coming grabbed what they could carry and hurried out of the buildings.  
Mostly they took ammo, weaponry and even one or two radio sets.  
The humans in Karakura were confused and scared because of the strange phenomenon.  
Unsure how they should continue their hunt after the hated vampires, the shelterless people were almost magically drawn toward the center of the city.  
There the V.A.S.T. Tower still stood unscathed, like an unseen force was keeping nature from taking over.

From all around, small groups of _hunters_ assembled and looked toward the big entrance doors.  
Jugram came through them.  
He looked upon his small army, that was dusty, injured and confused.  
He cleared his throat and made a wide, welcoming gesture.  
"My fellows, come in to this safe haven, were the cursed doings of those beasts can't harm us. From here we will prepare for the final clash against them. They think they are in advantage now, but we will prove them wrong and eliminate them once and for all."  
The mass cheered and slowly followed after their leader, inside of the ruin.

-/-

Back to these _enemies_

Everyone was fast asleep in their beds.  
Everyone but Ichigo who had jolted awake as he felt a presence lurking nearby.  
He chose to quickly investigate on his own.  
Just behind the small stream there stood a figure, that seemed to be waiting for him.  
"Master, I finished my task."  
Ichigo huffed.  
"Can't you appear normally for once?"  
Then he thought it over and breathed deep, combed through his hair with his fingers and added.  
"Lucifer, listen...Actually I, want to apologize for last time and what I did to you. I just got so pissed from your depressive attitude. Anyway, thanks for your hard work."  
"It's ok, Ichigo."

That was the first time since Ichigo had bound Lucifer in this world, that he had called him by name.  
"Can I help you with anything else?"  
The young god thought about it for a moment, then grabbed the necklace with the crystal.  
"Actually, there would be one thing. Can you help me to make this thing able to open up a path to heaven? I seem to lack the knowledge and, or ability."  
Lucifer sighed and looked apologizingly at Ichigo.  
"You ask quite difficult things of me, Ichigo. With my current power I would need the help of a gatekeeper."  
That disenchanted Ichigo, but his hopes got heightened just after.  
"But mine might still work, so we could exchange the keys. I guess this one is Sataniel's. If so then it is enough for me to use earths paths."  
Ichigo agreed to it and so they switched the keys.  
"Can you make those keys maybe? We would need some of them for later."  
"I can try to. But there is no guaranty it works"

Ichigo wanted to immediately try out his new key and bust heaven if he coud get over there, but got interrupted by his Shiro who slowly walked over to them.  
"Are you doing things by yourself again, Ichigo?"  
He asked his mate, a bit grumpy.  
The pale had picked up their talk about the key, the rest he got by taking a quick look into Ichigo's mind.  
Mentioned looked determined into golden eyes.  
Shiro just shook his head and sighed.  
He knew Ichigo wouldn't ever change, no matter how much he promised to try to.  
"Just come back in one piece, will you?"  
The orangette nodded and with Lucifers instruction, to let his energy flow into the crystal and create a portal with it, he eventually managed to open a path to heaven.  
He stepped inside and immediately found himself in a new world.

It was different than he knew it from Lucifer.  
The place was dead earth and the big metropolis ahead of him seemed uninhabited and devastated.  
He wasn't so far from it, so he quickly paced into the huge medival - gothic styled city.  
Everywhere he looked seemed destroyed and empty, there really was no one to be found.  
Heaven was already dead, but who was responsible for it?  
Ichigo looked around and he felt more and more uneasy with each step.  
All the more when he heard whispering voices from all around.

" _It's Lucifer. He came back."_  
" _Our rightful king is back."_  
" _He will avenge us."  
_ " _He will safe ***** "_

Ichigo couldn't understand the word but he guessed it was the native name for the planet.  
There were hundreds of voices and they continued to whisper.

" _Lucifer came back."_  
" _Lucifer is back."_  
" _The king."  
_ " _Metathron's prodigy."_

One voice though, halted the others as it opposed.

" _Wait. No, that's not Lucifer."_

The others asked further questions then _._

" _He's not?"  
_ " _Who is he then?"_

From ther a rich discussion rose between them.

" _He's a child of his."_  
" _No, a child of Gabriel."_  
" _Did he eat Lucifer?"_  
" _He killed Lucifer!"_  
" _He's here to kill us."_  
" _But we're already dead."  
_ " _He wants to kill ***** "_

" _Gabriel!"_  
" _Get Gabriel!"_  
" _Where is she?"_  
" _In the palace."_  
" _Call her."  
_ " _Call Gabriel."_

Ichigo was growing frustrated from all those voices talking in a mess.  
But they had given him a lead.  
The one responsible seemed to still be alive and hide in the big tower, they called palace.  
So he would go there and confront, _her_.  
As he just caught sight of it, a tall, slender woman descended from the sky right in front of him.  
He stepped back, one hand at his sword.

"Don't be afraid my child."  
Ichigo scoffed.  
"I am not your child, _Gabriel_."  
The female angel had long black hair, blue eyes and a scar just below her throat.  
She seemed calm and friendly, which was a huge difference to Ichigo's presumpion.  
Warily he asked the woman.  
"Did you do this to your home? Is it you who is after the manhunt of my kin?"  
"NO!"  
Her yell sounded desperate.  
"I would never do this to my brethren! I never wanted to do this to Lucifer's children either. I am protecting the few angels who could hide from _his_ wraith. All of us are on your side."  
Ichigo looked skeptically at her, all he could find though was the despair of a mother who was trying to protect her family.  
"Why haven't you left this place then?"  
Ichigo asked.  
"I no longer have a key and there are no gatekeepers anymore."  
From the small streets all around them, several little angels hesitantly came out, before they quickly ran toward Gabriel and fearfully hid behind her.  
"I couldn't leave the children and trying to flee with them would have been impossible without being found by _him_."  
Children!?  
There were maybe a handful of those little angels.  
The orange top felt a tight feeling rise in his chest.  
He felt bad for his plans now.

"Ichigo, your opponent is much more dangerous than you might think."  
Ichigo took that very serious, since she as one of the highest Seraphim said it.  
"Who is it?"  
"Michael. He's been it since the beginning. I was just doing as he ordered. The only one of his slayers I truly call my child is your current you."  
"Why is that?"  
He wanted to know, sincerely.  
"Because I stole your soul from the cage where he keeps the slayer souls and brought it to earth. I intentionally connected it to a child with vampiric heritage. The prophecy of the spirits of time came from me and I took it upon me to make it finally come true. I watched you grow and awaken. I feared that all had failed when you fell into the coma, but then Lucifer came and caused this wonder. Now, to protect these children and all life on earth, I want to help you however I can to make you victorious in this war."  
"Why didn't you already come to me then?"  
"I was afraid to leave them alone."  
Gabriel looked at the children then and they stepped away from her.  
She then knelt down in front of Ichigo.  
"I Gabriel, protector of the last angels, hereby pledge my loyalty to you and beg you to grant us shelter on earth. Let these children grow and become the guardians of peace on earth."  
Ichigo was taken aback and was a bit embarrassed that the mighty angel knelt before him.  
"Please stand up Gabriel, that is not worthy of yourself."  
She did as she was told.

The orange head looked at the scared faces of the kids.  
That wasn't like he imagined.  
He thought there would be only high and mighty grown angels who would look down upon him and try to kill him as soon as he stepped foot on their holy grounds.  
As if he could deny Gabriel her pleads now.  
"Fine. You can call earth your new home. But don't show yourselves to openly. I already have enough problems as it is."  
Gabriel got the hint, still smiled gently and happily.  
"I thank you."  
Ichigo face-palmed and sighed.  
Things were going out of hand quickly.

He opened the path back to earth and told them to step through and find a place to stay at where they would be out of harms way.  
The orangette stayed behind for now.  
The voices who had kept silent throughout the conversation now started to whisper again.

" _He's kind."_  
" _He saved Gabriel."_  
" _He will end ***** now."_  
" _We can't be spared."_  
" _We will be free."_  
" _Thank you."_  
" _Be good to the children."  
_ " _Avenge us."_

" _Judge Michael."_  
" _Cursed Michael."_  
" _The Traitor."  
_ " _He doomed us."_

Ichigo knew what to call them now.  
They were similar to souls, bound to these grounds by some curse made by the one who betrayed them.  
He would let the planet vanish now and so set those poor beings free.  
That was the only mercy he could give them.  
With his powers he caused the core of the planet to die, and eventually the small star would implode and vanish.  
Again he opened the path to earth and returned home to his beloved, not without giving the poor dead angels a last thought of farewell.

When he was back to earth, he was a bit depressed.  
Lucifer was still where he left him alone, Shiro seemed to have gone back into the hideout.  
"I met Gabriel. She gave me the ability to make your keys, before she left with the small ones."  
The fallen one stated, as he tinkered another one of the crystals.  
"I told them of a solemn place I found. They will stay there. Unless you call for Gabriel she will not take action in the fight, since it was your wish for her to stay out of it."  
"Hmm."  
Ichigo barely heard what the raven had said.

Suddenly he felt a sharp pain on his cheek , followed by a slapping sound echoing through the woods.  
"Snap out of it, Ichigo. Whatever you saw there is in the past now. You did the best you could. I am glad that you finally got over your mania and returned back to normal."  
Lucifer shook his head and huffed.  
"I should have been more cautious about the aftereffects on your psyche, when I gave you my powers. Though I am relieved that you only unloaded it upon me. Now get yourself together and continue on your path. But don't forget to consider what it means for the ones on the other side. The humans who work for Michael might be under some influence, so don't simply run them over."  
It was as if a knot broke in Lucifer as he ranted on and on.  
But he was right.

Ichigo couldn't let himself be dragged down by this, he needed to continue with his head held high.  
He was the only one who could stop that maniac.  
All races where counting on him now.  
Ichigo pushed his depression aside.  
"You're right. Thank you Lucifer."

Chapter 27  
End  
_______  
  
In the role of Gabriel : Retsu Unohana

I hope you still like the story

See you next time

Yours

Shiro Yue


	29. 28

_Let's go back in time_ _a bit_ _and follow Jugram's vampire-slave_

Six hours had passed after he lost trail of Ichigo's presence and chose a random direction to continue his search.  
Eventually he found himself moving _with_ the phenomenon that certainly was caused by the orange head.  
The vampire had noticed that he was quickly getting hungry again and that was going to be a problem since he never hunted for his food before.  
In the past it always had been conveniently stored at his workplace and in his home.  
He had to find someone he could feast from now and that worried him.  
Just until he crossed paths with one of the _hunters_ who was aimlessly staggering through the woods.  
Hunting the man down came so natural.  
His instinct just took over and he kind of enjoyed the thrill of it.  
Once he had sucked his prey dry he let it drop to the ground like a bag of trash.  
Then he proceeded his search for Kurosaki until he didn't know where he had gone already and where not.

_Several hours later_

The vampires senses seemed off and there still was this voice in his head that wouldn't stop arguing with him.  
It was getting very iritating.  
On top of it lost trace of time.  
Had it been just hours or maybe days already?  
He felt dizzy and the hunger was resurfacing.  
Again.

The vampire could smell blood, not far away from him and traced it down.  
At the end of the trail he found yet another _hunter_ that somehow got himself a small injury on the leg.  
The predator sneaked behind his prey and killed him quickly, drinking every last drop of the warm red fluid.  
'Something is off.'  
He thought to himself and the voice in his head whispered.

' _It's_ _Kurosaki's fault_.'  
The vampire walked away from the corpse, seeing a chinese peacock butterfly flying by in the corner of his eyes.  
' _You are a slayer. It's not right to be friends with a vampire_.'  
'Urahara was friends with Ishhin.'  
' _Urahara kept tabs on him._ _He'd killed him if he'd turned._ _You all let Kurosaki whisper pretty lies into your ears._ '  
The vampire didn't feel sated at all.  
He was still dizzy and this voice drove him mad.  
' _You've been deceived._ _God, forsake you._ _You are a fallen child._ '  
"No, I am not. I followed the first's will."  
The vampire mumbled to himself and slowly walked off.  
He continued arguing with the voice.  
"We just did as he wished..."

_A day went by_

The vampires head became even fuzzier over night and he still was hearing that voice.  
He had come to a vast empty space with only a single tree and strange monuments underneath it.  
He felt like he knew the place, but that seemed so, so far away.  
Just before he had found this place, he had fought against the desire to kill just another human.  
This turned out to be a wrong deciscion since he quickly was losing strength.  
He dragged himself to the tree and dropped to the ground in it's shadows.  
Here he would take just a small break and then he'd find something to eat, after all.

 _'Destroy Kurosaki._ '  
He sat up and watched as the same butterfly flew past him again.  
Or maybe it was just one of te same species?  
' _He's watching you_.'  
"Shut up."

The vampire tried to think clear again, but the voice wouldn't let him.  
He was too hungry to muster up enough will to shut the voice up.  
Why was this happening?  
It must be because of that sigil.  
By now he had noticed that it was something not from this world.  
It felt like it was sucking up his energy, which forced him to either replenish himself very often, or fall into the state of a S.I.N.  
If that Jugram was a mere human, how could he posses these powers?  
Had Gabriel made a new kind of slayer?  
Was it her plan to make the old slayers eliminate each other since they went against her will?

' _Kill Kurosaki._ '  
'Don't listen to the voice.'  
He thought to himself.  
' _Kurosaki's in your head._ _He's manipulating you._ '  
"Shut It."  
' _Kill Kurosaki._ '

Slowly the sun began to rise.  
"Kill Kurosaki..."  
He grabbed the weapon on his back, took a cloth from hi pockets and began to take care of his weapon and smiled lightly.  
"Like he would let me."

Chapter 28  
End


	30. 29

_Just after Gabriel and the angel children had gone to earth_

The female angel and her proteges stepped foot on earth, right where Ichigo had opened a path before to get to heaven.  
Dark blue eyes met light blue ones, as her sight fell upon Lucifer, who was struggling to fulfill Ichigo's request.  
"Oh, dear brother!"  
Gabriel called out and a faint smile adored her lips, while tears of joy welled up in her eyes.  
Lucifer looked up and the same delight played on his face.  
"Gabriel, my sister."  
The fallen one rose, walked over to her and gently rested the palms of his hands on Gabriel's cheeks.  
The woman closed her eyes and leaned into the touch.  
"I'm so happy to finally see you again."  
She whispered.  
"So am I."

"I thought you had perished. How are you still alive?"  
"It's a long story. But right now my scion holds me in this world."  
Gabriel looked intensely at her brother, who had let go of her face.  
"I see that he gave you Sataniel's powers. So he is gone now?"  
"He is. I am glad to still be in this world now, since I got to see my beloved sister again."  
He gently stroked her right cheek with the back of his hand.

His eyes fell upon the scar below her throat.  
Gabriel then covered it with one hand and said, with eyes cast down.  
"That was Michael. He tried to kill me after he found out that I stole that child's soul and planted it into a vampire child. He failed and I hid in the shadows from then on."  
The female angel began to cry silently.  
"After he banned you, he murdered Metatron. No one accepted him as the new king, as long as you were alive. He was so furious when he found out that you were out of his reach. After you made your kin, he became mad. He killed all of our brothers and sisters, let the planet die slowly to punish all of us who sided with you. They were still suffering even after death. Each day I listened to their wails as I tried to protect the last surviving. In the end it's just us."  
She looked down at the children beside her.  
With teary eyes she looked back up into Lucifer's eyes.

"You made the right choice to give him your powers. He will safe everything."  
Lucifer couldn't stand to see his sister so saddened, but his heart clenched as well when he heard what happened on his home planet.  
He gave the woman a slight kiss to her forehead.  
"Has Ichigo given you any instructions?"  
Gabriel swiped off the last tears, took a deep breather and regained her composure, slowly.  
"We shall stay hidden until the end."  
"Then I know the perfect place for you."  
Lucifer told her of a mountain site, where no human ever set foot and where she and the kids could stay until he would come to pick them up.  
"What will you do?"  
The female angel asked.  
"I will stay here and help Ichigo out. If time is right I want to talk with him about my bindings again. He seems to have calmed down. Maybe he's more open to listen to me now."

Gabriel asked him, what he had been doing when they arrived and found that with Sataniel's powers alone he would be unable to fulfill his task.  
She had collected the knowledge and abilities of all the angels that she had cared for, so that she could pass it on to the children.  
Among them had been the last gatekeeper that had barely survived Michael's fury.  
She chose to pass on his ability to Lucifer to aid him in his task.  
Lucifer tried out his new skills and made his first portal crystal.  
Gabriel asked if he could give it to her and he handed it over.  
Afterward they bid their farewell for now.

"May life be with you, Lucifer."  
"And with you."  
Gabriel opened an other path and the small group left to the place Lucifer had told them.  
Just minutes after Ichigo came back and Lucifer filled him in on the happenings, while he steadily worked on making more crystal keys.

Chapter 29  
End


	31. 30

Ichigo, followed by Lucifer, returned to Shiro, whom he found on the sofa with arms crossed in front of is chest and impatiently tipping on the floor with his right foot.  
His deep frown lightened as he saw his mate.  
"Have you finished your nightly excursions?"  
Shiro asked still a bit sour.  
"Yes. Shiro I'm sorry. I know I ran ahead again."  
The pale sighed, then smiled.  
"At least you know your faults. Can we go back to bed now?"  
Ichigo agreed, but before that, he assigned the fallen angel the spare room to take for his own.

If it hadn't been for Hisana and the wolf cub they would have slept through the entire next day.  
Instead they got woken around past 10 am.  
After their pet had it's morning toilet, she was fed and after that Hisana ran off with her to play.  
Shiro, Ichigo and Lucifer stayed behind and had a talk.  
Ichigo filled his mate in on the late night happenings and the pale was surprised that there were angels who sided with them.

"Lucifer, there is one thing that I always wanted to know."  
The pale said toward the raven.  
Lucifer gazed at him and inquired.  
"That would be?"  
"Why is it, that _holy water,_ if you want to call it like that, affects vampires so badly?"  
Lucifer looked at him, maybe a bit dumbfounded, like he never actually thought about it, then turned to Ichigo.  
"What's the exact contents of this water again?"  
"Normally, just saltwater that a priest blessed. The one that we use though, has myrrh extract in it."  
The fallen angel acted a bit strange, and hesitantly spoke up.  
"I see. Well, this might sound stupid, but... When I made my first creations, I basically used my own DNA as a blueprint,...and..."  
Lucifer actually turned red in the face now, when he told.  
"I am allergic to myrrh."  
Ichigo's and Shiro's jaws dropped in disbelieve.  
"Allergic?"  
Shiro asked.  
"Yes. We angels might be higher evolved, so to say, but that doesn't make us invincible to everything, so... we can have allergies."  
Ichigo upon regaining his composure, then concluded.  
"So, all of us are allergic to myrrh. That extreme, deadly reaction could be a result of Sataniel's _virus_ then? Maybe that allergy became part of the _virus_ ' nucleus."  
"That sounds very logical."  
Lucifer agreed.

After that Ichigo changed the topic and asked about the soul cages Gabriel had spoken about.  
The angel explained that it was an invention of Samael to transport unwilling souls to hell.  
Samael though had shared his knowledge of creating these cages with the other Seraphim.  
Michael might have misused that, to cage the slayer souls and release them when _he_ wanted.  
"Also, I used these to hold onto the souls of those who were still alive and had no qualms to live a new life in your new world, or even were vampires themselves."  
The raven told.  
"Where are they now?"  
Shiro wanted to know, since he hadn't seen the angel walk around with such an huge amount of souls.  
"Here."  
Two confused faces stared at him since they couldn't see or feel anything.  
"The cages have a mechanism, like the stealth shields of military aircraft, just a bit better. When you activate it, the light breaks differently on the surface, making it become invisible. Once a soul is inside it's presence will be completely shut off from the outside world."  
Lucifer explained further and in his hand appeared an marble like orb, with a diameter at around an inch (2 cm), in which a fog like, glowing substance swirled.  
"How many of those did you get?"  
"Maybe two dozen of vampires and around..."  
The angel looked into the air above him, suddenly a whole bunch of these orbs hovered over his head.  
"200 humans."

That wasn't as much as Ichigo expected, though seeing the huge amount of orbs was overwhelming.  
"Just that few? But what about the refugee country? In east Europe Byakuya sheltered thousands of Vampires."  
Shiro asked back, visibly shocked.  
"If you're talking about Romania. That place seemed to have been wiped clean of life for some time now. The few vampires that I met close to the borders all said about the same: 'They are finished with the humans and your organization that gave them this false sense of peace and they'd rather die a dog's death than to follow after you another time.'  "  
Ichigo took that piece of information in and concluded that the rest had to be hunters that were still hiding somewhere, and that almost all other humanoid beings were long dead.  
Lucifer seemed to have caught on to his thoughts.  
"You told me to collect vampires and those worthy. These are all I could find on earth. The rest is supposedly on Elysium. We could try to get into contact with Samael."  
Ichigo shook his head.  
"No, let's leave this for later. How far are you with the keys?"  
"I have finished about 40. If you need more just tell me."  
Ichigo nodded appreciatively.  
"For now that should suffice. Let us store these and the soul containers here somewhere."  
They found a place where the huge amount of objects wouldn't be in the way and chose to get some fresh air.

As the watched Hisana play, Lucifer went up to Ichigo.  
"Ichigo."  
"What is it?"  
The orange head didn't take his gaze off of his foster child.  
"There is something else that I want to discuss. Again."  
Ichigo knew what he meant, but still waited for the angel to continue.  
"I had some time to think it over, just like you. I am happy to have seen my sister again and I want to help her raise the children once you ended all this. All I want to ask of you is to undo the binds on me and give me back the right to choose the time of my end."  
Ichigo remained silent, for at least two minutes.  
"So you say you want to continue living and help us out."  
"Yes."  
"And you won't turn on my back just when I granted your wish?"  
"I can only give you my word on this."  
"Well, even though I was wrong back then, I am glad that it helped you find a reason to live on. I don't want you to die now, by accident. So can you agree to it, when I promise to do it some time after all is over?"  
The angel contemplated about it for a moment, then agreed.  
"I think I can live with that."  
Lucifer excused himself and went back inside to rest some more.

Ichigo sat there, the sun shining in his face through the crowns of the trees and his face was getting uncomfortably warm under the eye cloth.  
He removed it and used the time to train his sight,  
The double image wasn't so prominent anymore and it didn't make him sick any longer.  
He thought that his body had adjusted to the change and that the "beast" inside him had begun to calm and fall into deep slumber again.  
Shiro had gone to the small stream and fell asleep in the sun.  
Koori suddenly barked and ran deeper into the woods, Hisana was hot on her heals.  
Ichigo kept his senses on them.

-/-

The _hunters_ had divided up the area that had been the town before and scouted it in small teams of each two persons.  
They had orders to kill every other person that crossed their paths indiscriminately.  
It didn't matter anymore whether they might be human.  
Some of the _hunters_ had spoken against this order when it was spoken out by their boss.  
The first to raise his voice, had lost his head in an instant.  
All others kept it low then, realizing that they all were just pawns in his hand and in order to survive they had to follow.  
One of the _hunter_ parties slowly came dangerously close to Ichigo's family.

-/-

Hisana still was running after Koori who hunted small insects.  
"Koori! Stay here! It's not safe!"  
Suddenly the white furball stopped, growled and dashed of to the right.  
A clattering sound and a suppressed gurgling came from the bushes, then she came back, with her snout dark from blood.  
"Eww, Koori. Did you kill a rabbit?"  
She barked and turned to run back to the hideout.  
"Koori!"

-/-

The two _hunters_ had just split up, still keeping each other in sight, to inspect a wider area, when one heard a strange sound and upon looking to his partner, found a small dog tear his throat.  
At first he was to shocked to move, but then he headed after it against his instinct to just drop everything and run away.  
He found it and a girl that was running after it.  
She was maybe eleven or twelve.  
The _hunter_ had orders.  
He had to shoot her.  
He aimed and pulled the trigger.  
A high pitched scream echoed through the trees.

Chapter 30  
End


	32. 31

A loud bang echoed through the forest and the object penetrated into the wood in the height of the girls head.  
“Kyaah!“  
Hisana shrieked.  
Hadn't Koori made an abrupt turn to the left, causing Hisana to follow suit, it would have killed her instantly.  
“Shit.”  
The _hunter_ cursed and homed on to her anew, hoping that the animal wouldn't be at his throat any second.  
He pulled the trigger and missed a second time.  
That stupid fur ball always pulled her out of reticle as soon as his finger crooked around the trigger.  
Now he had to tail them as they ran deeper into the woods.

_Over at the hideout_

Ichigo had heard gunshots and Hisana's cry.  
Shiro had jerked awake as well and both jumped to their feet in an alarmed state.  
“Hisana!”  
The orange head called into the forest.  
He shouldn't have let her run off so far.  
Also he wondered why he hadn't noticed any of the _hunters_ being so close to them already.  
Ichigo turned to Shiro.  
“Wait here and protect the place. I look for her.”  
With that he ran off to the direction where the shots had come from.  
He could feel the panic of his foster child and followed her presence until he caught up to her.  
On the way he had found one pair of foot prints of heavy boots on the forest ground.  
'Fucking bastard.'  
  
When he came to the place where Hisana had stopped, he found her backed to a tree, Koori standing in front of her growling menacing at the _hunter_ who pointed his rifle at the two.  
Hisana stared at the barrel with wide, fear-struck eyes and she shook terribly.  
The humans index finger bend around the trigger and pulled it back.  
To Ichigo everything seemed to happen in slow motion.  
He watched as sparks of gunpowder lighted up when the firing pin hit the projectile.  
The bullet left the long barrel, dragging a tail of smoke after it and sailed through the air to Hisana's head and....  
Nothing happened to her.  
In fact, Ichigo had moved faster than the bullet and shielded his fosterlings.  
His right hand was outstretched and balled to a fist.  
The bullet rested in it.  
  
Hisana hesitantly looked up, when nothing happened and a delighted sound escaped her as her sight fell upon Ichigo's back.  
“Onii-chan!”  
But Ichigo ignored her.  
Right now he fought against the rage welling up inside him again.  
He was ready to tear that man, who dared to threaten what belonged to him, apart in the most gruesome way.  
Still he knew that he shouldn't do this in front of the child.  
“How dare you.”  
Ichigo growled deeply.  
His instinct was getting the better of him.

The _hunter_ shook in fear, so much that he couldn't even aim with the weapon in his hands anymore.  
He could feel that Ichigo was something, much worse than any vampire.  
The sheer force of the orangettes presence was enough to almost make him suffocate.  
The human felt like a whole ocean weighted down on him.  
Ichigo walked over to him, slowly, like a predator.  
The man sunk to his knees, dropped the rifle and bend forward, holding his hands to his head.  
“Hy-hy-hyaaaaa!!”  
The young god crouched down, opened the hand in which he held the bullet in front of the mans face.  
Metallic dust rained to the mossy ground.  
“I'm returning that.”  
The _hunter_ looked up, with teary eyes, into blue and brown ones.

Ichigo stood back up, grabbed onto the top of the _hunters_ head with the same hand that released the remnants of the bullet.  
His fingers stretched over the entire base of the humans head.  
“P-please....forgive me...”  
The orange head tilted his head, his eyes stared at his opponent without blinking even once.  
“Mmh...Forgive you? Can one be forgiven for trying to kill an innocent, helpless child?”  
Ichigo jerked the mans head back, so that he was forced to look up to the sky.  
“I think not.”

_The hunters POV_

He began to feel a sharp pain in his head, like it would explode any second.  
Sticky tears streamed from his eyes and the same fluid came from his nostrils.  
He guessed that it was blood, that he would die now.  
Why hadn't he just run away after his partner had been killed?  
He could have escaped somewhere from all of this, but he had been to scared of his boss.  
Who would have thought that there was something a lot more frightening out there?

“Ichi-nii, don't!”  
Suddenly the pain stopped, he saw his tormentor look back to the girl, through eyes, tinted rosy from blood.

_Normal POV_

“Don't do this, Ichi-nii. You aren't like this. You're kind and gentle. You wouldn't just murder people. You wanted to break the spiral that we're stuck in!”  
She almost screamed the last sentence and tears glittered in the corners of her eyes.  
It must have gotten through to Ichigo, as his grip on the humans head got weaker.  
Eventually he said, as he completely let go of his victim.  
“Yeah. You're right. I'm sorry Hisana.”

He looked back to the _hunter_ and said.  
“I won't let you hurt anyone else again though.”  
A slight breeze rustled through the trees.  
All the armor on the humans body and every weapon he had with him turned to dust and was taken away by the wind.  
The man knelt there, frozen in his position until Ichigo, Hisana and Koori were gone.  
Then he blinked.  
“Huh? What am I doing here? Where is this even?”  
He looked down on himself and found that he was just wearing tight pants and a shirt.  
He didn't even have shoes.  
The man got to his feet and walked in the opposite direction of Ichigo.

Eventually he would cross paths with his former colleagues.  
One would zero in on him and shoot.  
In a bit more than an hour from now, he would die from a head-shot, about five miles away from his starting point.

Chapter 31  
End

 


	33. 32

Jugram's vampire slave had crossed paths with several scouting teams of the _hunters_.  
At first he wondered why the blonde had send them out, but them came to the conclusion, that they were just pawns to serve as a distraction for other vampires.  
Also it seemed as if he wanted that the vampire had enough means to fill his need for blood.  
He couldn't deny that he used that rich offering more than once and that let him worry even more about something else.  
The vampire had noticed that every time he replenished himself, that voice....no, that entity inside him grew stronger.  
It had gained so much strength already, that it tried to take over his body.  
For now he could still hold it down, but he feared that it wouldn't take much more until he'd inevitably would lose that fight.  
He was becoming a marionette because he had given in, in a weak moment.

That the _hunters_ shot at everything that moved, was yet another problem.  
The vampire had to treat very cautious in the woods.  
But now he had to thank the humans though, since he had been in the area where the incident with Ichigo happened.  
The man sensed the orangettes presence as it raged in fury.  
He ran to the direction and as soon as he came close enough, sneaked so close until there was just a bush parting him from Ichigo and a _hunter_.  
The vampire found a girl and a dog to be with the orange head.

' _Act now. Kill them all._ '  
'Leave me alone.'  
He secretly followed behind the three when they left.  
' _You shall obey._ '  
The man felt dizzy, like he was losing consciousness.  
That entity forced itself through his mental barrier.  
It was taking over control and he couldn't stop it anymore.  
His body was now directed by the entity and all he could do was watch like an onlooker.  
Ichigo stopped and told the girl something, then she and the dog ran off.

-/-

Ichigo stopped his pace and addressed Hisana next to him.  
“Hisana, go on ahead. Don't stop until you reached the place.”  
“But, Nii-san...”  
He was very serious and took a look at Hisana that didn't leave any room for obligations.  
“Please. Just go.”  
The girl did.

She ran until she reached the hideout, where Shiro was waiting impatiently for their return.  
“Hisana. Are you ok? Where is Ichigo?”  
She hugged him and then explained to Shiro.  
“A _hunter_ shot at me and Ichigo was really mad because of it. He tried to kill him, but I could talk him out of it. We were just coming back. Then he said I should go on ahead. I think there was someone still after us.”  
Shiro cursed.  
He feared Ichigo could lose control.  
“I have to go to him.”  
Hisana grabbed tighter onto him.  
“Please stay here. Don't leave me alone.”  
Shiro patted her head reassuringly.  
“But Lucifer is here.”  
She glared over to the trap door.  
“He can't protect me. He's weak.”  
Shiro was surprised by that remark.  
Hisana was very observatory of her surroundings, despite her childish behavior.  
“Alright. I'll stay here.”  
The pale prayed that his mate would be fine.

-/-

Ichigo had felt that something was following them.  
The presence felt familiar and yet foreign.  
He was waiting for it to come from it's hiding.  
Instead that being fired a projectile at him from behind.  
Ichigo didn't even bother to dodge that.  
He just let it crumble to dust, midair.  
“I'm really getting tired by all of you, trying to lynch me from behind.”  
He said and slowly turned around, eyes closed and focusing on his opponent.  
“Come out already.”  
The orangette opened his eyes and stared at the point where he knew the other was hiding.  
The bushes rustled and out stepped a man, with a much to familiar face.

“I..shi..da?”  
Ichigo was shocked.  
He thought that the others all had been long dead.  
Why hadn't he felt his presence this whole time?  
Why was he standing in front of him now, with this empty expression and his bow pointed toward him?  
“...Kuro...saki....”  
Ishida's voice sounded strained, as if he was fighting to bring out any words.

The raven haired slayer-vampire released the arrow, aimed at Ichigo's head.  
Ichigo was still frozen in shock, when the projectile flew past him and cut his cheek, before it drilled into the trunk of a tree.  
“What are you doing Ishida?”  
He eventually asked, realizing the situation.  
Ishida took another arrow, his movements shaggy like a robot.  
“Ishida! Stop that!”  
The orange head yelled at him, but there was no reaction.  
Another arrow flew and again just scraped Ichigo.  
He tried to comprehend what was going on with his long term friend.  
Ishida's movements became more fluid and quicker.  
It took him just a third try, before he fired a whole salve of arrows at Ichigo, who then was forced to dodge these eventually.  
“Kuro...saki...”  
Just after the orange head avoided the last projectile, Ishida forced that single word out again.

The young god looked back to his friend and found that his face distorted to a desperate grimace.  
On the contrary, his body automatically grabbed for new ammunition.  
Ichigo didn't know what to do.  
There must be something that made Ishida do this against his will.  
He seemed to be remote controlled by something.  
A single tear rolled down on Ishida's face.  
“Help...”

Ichigo snapped out of his stupor.  
He rushed forward, dodged the next arrow flying toward him and toppled the raven over.  
“I have no idea what's wrong with you, but hold still now. I will help you.”  
Dull eyes looked at him.  
Uryuu grabbed onto the holster on his thigh and pulled out one of his needle like throwing darts.  
He tried to stab Ichigo with it, but the other just grabbed onto his underarm and pushed it back to the ground.  
“I told you to hold still.”  
Then he tried to force himself into Ishida's mind, to find the source for his weird behavior.  
He didn't get far, before something tried to push him away.

' _Get out!_ '

That wasn't Ishida.  
Ichigo clearly felt the characteristics of an angel from it.  
It felt just like the souls that had been trapped on heaven.  
While it felt really strong Ichigo found that Ishida was getting weaker by the second.  
He had to hurry.  
Someone implanted this thing into Ishida.  
Now where was the core of that parasite?  
“Shit.”  
It was blocking him and Ishida's life-force was slipping through his fingers.  
How was it so fucking strong?  
Ichigo panicked.  
'What shall I do?'  
He tried to force through with all of his power.  
Even though he was scared to accidentally kill his friend with it.  
But time wasn't on his side.  
Ishida's body struggled against his hold.  
The parasite didn't hesitate to break it's hosts bones if needed.  
It was after Ichigo's neck, so much was sure.  
  
For just a moment Ishida's eyes cleared and the raven begged to Ichigo.  
“Just kill me.”  
“No, Ishida!”  
Ichigo called out.  
He had let go of Uryuu's arm.  
That was a fault.  
Ishida whispered.  
“Then I'll do it myself.”  
His hand jolted toward his chest and he impaled himself with the dart.  
“Ishida! No!”  
Ichigo bend over Ishida and took his friend by his shoulders.  
He was spitting blood.  
Just then his eyes clouded over again and the parasite spoke for the first time.  
“A fallen blossom doesn't return to the branch,...”  
Ichigo couldn't see the movement of the hand holding onto the dart.  
He just heard a clicking sound, before he felt that something sharp drilled into his stomach.  
“...a broken mirror can't be made to shine. *”

Chapter 32  
End

___________  
  
* 落花枝に帰らず, 破鏡再び照らさず. - rakka eda ni kaerazu, hakyou futatabi terasazu.

A japanese saying, that means so much as: What is done, is done. There is no changing it.

Though I like the idea more that the parasite want's to imply, that Ichigo and Ishida are rotten fruits and he will cut both off of the tree, since they can't be saved anymore.  
So much for my explanation  
I hope you enjoyed.

Originally I wanted to make Ishida crazy. I had it handwritten already but after some time, it just seemed unfitting to him, so that's what it turned out to be.

See you the next time

Yours  
Shiro Yue


	34. 33

That idiot Ishida had come up with a pretty nasty weapon.  
What seemed to be a simple throwing dart, really was a double-edged needle, which expanded through a mechanism.  
The raven had been taken over by the parasite again, while he slowly was bleeding to death.  
“Fucking idiot.”  
Ichigo cursed and spit up blood.  
A bit of it, dropped into the left corner of Ishida's mouth.  
It mixed with his own blood and strangely enough, the vampire's blood seemed to react to it.  
A vein like network appeared on the left side of Ishida's face, that stretched over the neck, to the heart.  
Ichigo slowly pulled the dart from his stomach, then he grabbed Uryuu's upper garments and ripped them apart.  
There he found the lines connect to a burn mark.  
That must be the core of the parasite.  
If a single drop of his blood was enough to expose it, than maybe he could kill it off with some more.  
That's what Ichigo concluded.  
He pried Ishida's hand open and pulled the dart out of him.  
His own had already closed.  
This fast regeneration could become a problem when he wanted to help Ishida.  
How wise of him to keep the fangs though.

Ichigo rolled up the sleeve of his jacket and bit into his own wrist.  
He sucked out a mouthful of his own blood and tried not to retch at the taste.  
The orange head, bend over, took Ishida's chin into his right hand and forced him to open his mouth.  
He let his blood slowly run into the mouth, then closed it with a hand and with the other held the nose shut.  
Whether Ishida or the parasite were in control, the body needed air and to get that, one of them would be forced to swallow, if they wanted or not.  
After that eventually happened Ichigo let go of Ishida, who began to writhe in pain.  
His wound closed slowly and the lines on his body became more prominent until eventually they slowly eroded.  
Minutes went by.  
All Ichigo could do was wait and hope that it worked and his friend would be back to normal.  
Ishida opened his eyes.  
They had a clear cobalt-blue.

The raven sat up, his expression was bewildered, the eyes wide.  
He swiped the blood off of the corner of his mouth, with his thumb and licked it off of it.  
“What is this?”  
He mumbled to himself.  
Ishida regained his composure, glared at Ichigo and pushed up his glasses, like he always did.  
“That was uncalled for, Kurosaki.”  
He commented, but couldn't help a slight smile, hush over his lips, before he added hesitantly.  
“Thank you.”  
“You're welcome.”  
Ichigo felt like a whole mountain dropped from his shoulders.  
He did it.  
“What did you do to yourself, Kurosaki?”  
The raven asked out of the blue.  
Ichigo guessed that his friend noticed the change in his blood, so he gave him the short version of the happenings on his end and he even told him of his resurfaced problem with this _rage_.  
Ishida listened closely, while he seemed to solve some kind of puzzle in his head, that only he knew.

“Ishida, what happened to you?”  
Ichigo asked back to him after he finished his own story.  
The raven was pulled out of his musings and seemed to contemplate over the best way to answer Ichigo.  
“Long story short....I signed a pact with a devil.”  
He eventually told.  
“And?”  
Uryuu sighed.  
“Alright. So, the _hunters_ caught me in Europe. The next thing I knew, was that I sat in a dark room, hungering for days, before this blonde guy came and convinced me to go after you. In exchange he promised to free me from this vampire life. Though he meant it in an other way than I had hoped for. Obviously.”  
Ishida held a hand on the place where the sigil was before, the raven seemed to be getting paler, his breathing got heavier.  
It seemed that he still was in pain.  
“He placed this on me. I hadn't noticed that it was more than just a burn mark until it was to late.”  
Ichigo looked concerned at Ishida as he finished and his friend returned the gaze.  
The raven was analyzing him.  
“You though, are even more oblivious of yourself.”  
The orange head didn't get what Uryuu meant and his expression must have given it away.  
“That _raging beast_ you spoke of, where do you think it came from? Maybe it's time you'd find out where your roots are.”

Ishida put the hand that he had covered the sigil with on one of his knees and pushed himself off the ground.  
The tattered shirt now hung over his chest and barely hid the burn mark from view.  
Ishida stood straight now and Ichigo looked up to him in a worried way.  
His friend was unstable on his legs, even if he tried to hide it.  
A slight breeze rustled through the leaves.  
Ichigo stood up as well and just as his gaze fell upon Ishida again, their eyes met.  
The slight wind lifted the torn shirt from the raven's chest and made a horrible sight viewable for Ichigo.  
The mark had resurfaced and the area around it was flaming red.  
It's roots quickly spread over Ishida's body.  
The young god's eyes widened in shock.  
“Ishida!”  
The orange head jumped forward, just when Ishida's legs gave out under him.  
Ichigo caught him and gently let him down to the ground.

He put his hand onto the mark, tried to stop it's spreading with his powers, but it wouldn't work.  
Again Ichigo panicked.  
Ishida was in in a lot of pain.  
He tired to fight it down himself as well, but there was no stopping that parasite.  
Ichigo knew that it wasn't trying to take over Ishida again.  
It tried to kill him.  
The blonde, Jugram, must have taken precautions, when Ishida should fail.  
“Don't make this face, Kurosaki.”  
Ishida said with a forced grin on his face.  
“It's not your fault.”  
He pressed the words out.  
The pain made it almost impossible to speak.  
“Ishida, please hold on. Maybe....maybe I can stop it. I just need some time.”  
The slayer-vampire's breath got shallow.  
In a last attempt to do anything for him, Ichigo held his wrist out to him.  
“Here drink some more. Maybe that can buy us some time. Please, Ishida.”  
Uryuu blinked and smiled weakly.  
“No, Ichigo....”  
Ichigo knew then, it was to late.  
Even when Ishida took a gulp now, before he would have swallowed and his blood came into effect, his friend's heart would fail.

With a final strained breather Ishida whispered.  
“....Become your true self.”  
All Ichigo could do, was watch as his soul left to Elysium.  
“I'm sorry.”

Chapter 33  
End

____

A Picture of the Sigil is on my DA


	35. 34

For the first time since he was granted his new powers, Ichigo felt weak.  
How could someone possess a power that he was unable to grasp, when Lucifer told him that no one should stand atop of him.  
In the back of his head, a thought rose, that the angel had lied to him.  
That their makers were deceiving them after all and all of this was just part of some sick play, so they could entertain themselves.  
Then he remembered heaven, the frightened faces of the children that clung to Gabriel's robes and the hurt in the Seraphims face.  
No, it wasn't their fault and he shouldn't push the blame on them, even if it was very easy to do so.  
Ichigo was really angry with himself now, for thinking like that for even one second.  
He alone was responsible for what happened to Ishida.  
While he was sitting in his safe hideout and played home with Shiro and Hisana, pretending to prepare himself for a fight that he was so sure to win.  
He had been so self centered.  
  
Ishida had been out there, suffering and Ichigo hadn't even tried to find any of his comrades himself.  
He left the task to Lucifer, who couldn't utilize even one portion of the powers of Sataniel at the time.  
To Ichigo it should have been child's play to find Ishida, even without his new powers.  
He could have avoided all of this, from the moment he had opened his eyes.  
But he was scared.  
Scared of that new power.  
Scared of the responsibilities.  
Scared of what slumbered in himself.  
Even if he hadn't tried immediately, he could have done so days ago, since the adaption had been over long ago.  
He knew it, but pretended that it was otherwise.  
“I'm such a loser.”  
He mumbled to himself, sitting there and drowning in self loathing.

Night was falling slowly and the trees cast long shadows around him.  
Ishida's last words resurfaced in his head at some point.  
They combined with his question about the origin of Ichigo's rage.  
Somewhere even the question that Ichigo had asked himself, why Gabriel had been able to cure his first incarnation, but no other vampires, came back to him.  
Ichigo crossed his legs, closed his eyes and listened into himself.  
Where were his roots?  
His father was a vampire's offspring, his mother a human and victim of a vampire attack, but that wasn't meant, was it?  
He dug deeper, trying to learn more about himself.  
His soul.  
  
It belonged to Byakuya's brother Asim.  
While Byakuya was considered the father of all vampires, Asim had been the first to be chosen by Gabriel to become a slayer.  
But why choose him?  
Had it been Michael's plan to make one of their own betray them or had Gabriel acted on her own, planning for something bigger?  
Ichigo came to his rage, that really had taken the form of a beast in his mind.  
He faced it when he came to something.  
What if Gabriel hadn't cured the vampirism?  
What if she had just added the slayer abilities to it?  
What if Asim had been the first hybrid and the power resulting from that, still lay in his soul?  
And unless this soul was born in a vampire again, none of his incarnations could fully utilize that power.  
Ichigo looked at the beast and finally he understood.  
This was no mindless monster, trying to take him over and rampage freely to it's own accord.  
This was the power he always should have had.  
He reached out to it and the beast dissolved, turned to a man that looked very similar to him.  
The man smiled at him, as if he was relieved that Ichigo finally understood and faded to a bright light before he fused with Ichigo, his current self.

Now that the young god finally grasped all of his own powers, the one's he got from Lucifer finally fully unloaded on him.  
Ichigo couldn't believe that he just had been able to use the bare minimum of them until now.  
He reopened his eyes, his body felt heavy.  
The orange head needed some time to get used to this new feeling.  
He remembered the rule, Lucifer had told him, that giving means taking and the other way around.  
That rule was meant to keep the balance of the world and the angels bound themselves to this.  
Ichigo was no angel though, and the world already was out of balance, so...  
He manned up once and for all.  
Here and now he would stop Michael's manipulation of earths people for his selfish plans.  
If there wasn't anyone left he could use, he would be forced to come out himself and Ichigo would be waiting for him then.  
The orange top rose to his feet, turned around to the direction of the hideout and while inhaling deeply, closed his eyes again.

His senses spread, taking notice of every little life-form on this planet and solely focusing on the humans.  
He could even sense the death, that followed everything.  
It didn't have a form or consciousness of it's own.  
Nothing could see it when it came to take them away.  
Ichigo would change that, if even just for a short time.  
He would become death himself.  
The young god spread his senses all over earth.  
He saw the unstoppable marching of his spell as it claimed the last parts of Europe.  
Romania, the place where their all-father had sheltered other Vampires had turned from a burned down wasteland to a blooming grassland with small and medium sized patches of forests in between.  
In the area of Germany, Netherlands and Belgium big parts of thick forest had started to burn and the fire spread quickly.  
Over the Atlantic ocean in south America a big wildfire burned as well, in the re-greened rain-forest.  
The orangette was furious, as he imagined that humans lit the fires, to smoke out the ones hiding between the trees.

Ichigo found tens of thousands of humans that were armed and seemed to belong to their respective countries _hunter_ organization as well as the small numbers of Vampires that remained and refused to be saved by Lucifer.  
He found that all _hunters_ seemed to bear the same sigil on their bodies as Ishida.  
Michael and his lap dog sure had taken a lot of precautions.  
A part of his mind found that here in Karakura, most of the remaining enemy forces hid in the ruins of his V.A.S.T. tower.  
A barrier had been placed around the tower and it had taken him some force to penetrate it, so he was sure that either that Jugram or Michael himself placed it.  
But the blonde leader of the _hunters_ was nowhere to be found.  
Ichigo wondered about that, while he forced all those people's souls to pass over to Elysium with his powers.  
Their empty vessels turned to dust, so that nothing would be left for the enemy to control.

As he was just retreating into his body, his senses brushed Shiro and he caught the surprise of the pale one.  
Maybe he even was a bit scared.  
Ichigo had to calm his mate once he got back.  
Finally fully returned to his body.  
The orange head opened his eyes, flexed his muscles a bit, then walked back to his current home with a slow and steady pace.  
  
Chapter 34  
End

 

A bit of a plot twist....maybe?

 

 

 


	36. 35

 

Jugram closely had watched how the nasty little parasite he planted into Ishida had grown and took the given task into it's own hands when the raven refused to submit.  
He was furious after Ichigo thwarted his plans and in his fury he set off the self destruct mechanism he had equipped the parasite with.  
The blonde was boiling with anger.  
His hopes that they'd kill each other were destroyed.  
Minutes after, he even lost grasp on Ishida's soul.  
Jugram gritted his teeth and balled his hand so tightly to a fist that his fingernails cut into his flesh.  
He spun around, glared at the artificial tree on his desk, then grabbed the four filled orbs and pushed them into his pockets.  
He was low on energy, it was time to leave and fortify himself.  
The _hunter_ took a necklace like Ichigo's from under his shirt.  
He had a portal crystal and was about to use it, but the path to his goal wouldn't open.  
“What is going on?”  
Jugram had no choice, he had to go elsewhere then.  
Suddenly he smirked.  
“Well then, it was about time to pay a visit to my bother.”  
A path opened and he stepped through.  
His goal: Elysium.  
  
 _Though by going there he would miss the change in Ichigo's powers._  
  
Once he stepped foot on it, he was amidst the chaos, in the middle of the night.  
Souls were everywhere, it was so crowded that one could barely move.  
Over everything some angels flew around, desperately trying to get a hold of the situation.  
One on the other hand seemed very uninterested in all of this.  
He was taller than the others, and older looking, with long wavy brown hair that he had braided to a ponytail.  
He wore an eye-patch and his one healthy eye was as gray as smoke and scanned over the area in a rather bored fashion.  
But only until they fell upon Jugram.

“You!”  
He descended to the blonde.  
“Hello, Samael.”  
The lord of Elysium shook his head, his mimic clearly stressed now and pointed his finger at Jugram.  
“Oh, no. No! Don't you dare. This place is off limits to you. You will not touch anyone here!”  
Jugram smirked and taunted the angel.  
“And who shall hinder me? Surely not you, Samael.”  
The blonde lifted one hand and about a third of the human souls on the planet got sucked up in it.  
Samael immediately reacted.  
He summoned a staff and cast all remaining souls into cages, bunched them up into several bags he made and called to his helpers.  
“Take them and run!”  
The lesser angels hurried to bring their valuable goods away from the danger.  
Jugram though wouldn't have it.  
He aimed at two and evaporated them and their cargo dropped to the ground.  
Another two lesser angels escaped through a path that Samael quickly opened for them.  
They fled to earth, following the presence of Gabriel and hide themselves and the precious souls in the same place where the female angel and the children were.  
“Aren't you too fond of these small critters, Samael? Why are you so desperate to protect them, when we can just make them again and again.”

The lord of Elysium grabbed his staff with both hands now, and it changed form to two big blades.  
“You know. They are our children and as their parent I will do everything to protect them from harm. Even when it comes from their own family.”  
The blonde let out a short laughter  
“Surely you jest, they are but livestock, that _you_ had your fair share of as well, haven't you? After all you are my brother.”  
Samael answered Jugram's mockery.  
“I am. But other than you I swore abstinence to this life, after Metatron spared me the fate of our parents and siblings.  
Jugram huffed, lifted his right hand and a thin sword materialized in it.  
“Then meet their fate now, by my hand.”  
They had a short clash, their blades colliding with each other several times.

Each other tried to manipulate the other with their abilities.  
Samael would creep into Jugram's mind and plant thoughts of giving up in them.  
Of self-hate and the feeling of powerlessness.  
But they rolled off of him like mercury.  
Jugram on the other hand got through to Samael's mind and played tricks on him.  
Making him believe that Jugram had disappeared or even been beaten, just to get an advantage and land one or two strikes from the angels back.  
“You are out of control. How could you even hide from Metatron so long?”  
Samael asked through clenched teeth.  
Jugram answered with a smirk and changed his own appearance in front of the lord of Elysium.  
He had taken the face of Metatron.  
Samael hesitated long enough to receive a heavy cut to the abdomen.  
“When did you?”  
Jugram swung his sword and pushed the blood off the blade with it.  
“Sataniel wasn't the only one to do these kinds of trickery, remember?”  
Samael moaned in pain, as his wound slowly closed up.  
“Sariel....”  
“Yes, our dear sister Sariel. She was a frail woman. That ability was the only good thing she had coming for her.”  
The older angel tightly grabbed the hilt of his swords, anger welled up in him.

Jugram grinned, again he changed form, this time he became the female angel he just had badmouthed.  
“Metatron easily was fooled by this appearance. He thought _I_ had vanished with Lucifer and sought comfort in the arms of _her_ , just to be slaughtered.”  
“You won't get away with this.”  
Samael grumbled under his breath, then launched at Jugram, who easily blocked his attacks.  
The lord of Elysium was furious, his strikes unbalanced and without much strength behind them.  
“Is that all?”  
Jugram kicked Samael in the stomach and send him flying back a good hundred feet.  
The other needed some time to recuperate after that, but in that time also cooled his head.  
He planned for a surprise attack.  
For that he let the dust on the ground around them be swirled up by a steady wind and swiftly moved behind the blonde, who had taken his true form again.  
Samael swung his double blades, but they went through thin air.  
Again Jugram had tricked him.

Their fight went on for hours, until the sun rose and began to set once more.  
Samael took advantage of the low standing sun, by letting the light reflect on one of his blades to blind Jugram.  
The blonde covered his eyes in reflex.  
Once more the lord of Elysium tried to get him from behind, but his swing was blocked off.  
With their blades crossed, Samael demanded for answers from the other once again.  
“Why do all of this? You could have lived on peacefully among them.”  
Jugram scoffed.  
“They took everything from us. Our family, our right to rule and our source of power. These low beings made us their pawns.”  
He paused, then his face became a hardened grimace.  
“The throne always was supposed to be mine and I won't let anyone take away whats mine from me anyhow. Not Lucifer or Sataniel with their aberrations that poison my food source, nor you or Gabriel who try to help that mutant kid, that you snuck into the ranks of my purgers.”  
Eventually the blonde had enough, he pushed Samael off and with another combination of strikes with his thin blade he rendered the other unable to use his wings or legs, then went for one of the bags to take in all of the souls that were in it.  
Samael, while rushing his healing, crawled after him in an attempt to stop him.

“MICHAEL!!!!”

He got to his feet and ran after the blonde, leaving himself wide open and Jugram, or Michael, used that to his advantage.  
The hilt of his sword changed form, to the shaft of a long lance, that was divided into several parts.  
Michael lifted it and held it nearly at the end of the shaft.  
He turned around to Samael and as he came to close to be able to dodge, he pushed the lance forward.  
The Seraphim of Elysium was impaled in the heart by the long blade.  
He faltered, blood soaked his robes.  
Michael let go of the end of the lance and walked closer toward him.  
“You still fall for the same tricks.”  
He grabbed the lance at the center section and twisted that.  
A hidden mechanism triggered and the blade that stuck in Samael's chest released barbs that hooked into the flesh of his heart.  
Jugram ripped the lance back and tore the organ out of the angels body.  
With his body, already weakened from the multiple deep wounds, it was rendered unable to reconstruct the missing organ in time.

“So long, _lord of the dead_.”

Before Samael's soul left the body, Michael took it and consumed it.  
His attention turned back to the souls in the bags.  
He opened the containers and scoffed.  
All of them belonged to vampires.  
The blonde wouldn't eat them even if his life depended on it.  
Without an other look at them he erased them.  
Samael's soul and the one's he already consumed had to suffice for now.  
If he was smart he could overpower Kurosaki even with this small power up.  
Michael reopened the path to earth, planning to seek the angels who got away.

 

Chapter 35  
End

_______  
  
Kyoraku Shunsui played the role of: Samael

                 


	37. 36

 

 _In the time of Michael's absence on earth_  
  
Shiro felt like he waited for hours out there.  
At some point he had send Hisana and her pet inside to stay with Lucifer.  
He had gotten an uneasy feeling and thought that the girl might be safer downstairs.  
She had protested at first, but when Shiro told her she should rest and warm up she went reluctantly.  
She had gone through enough for a day and really could need some peace.  
Lucifer promised to take good care of her, while Shiro remained outside.

Night had broken and inside the forest it was getting dark and cold real quick.  
It didn't go unnoticed to the pale, that Ichigo had spread out his senses and passed by him when he was returning to his body.  
The feeling he got from his mate though, made him even more nervous.  
He worried that Ichigo's fear to lose himself, had come true.  
Shiro didn't know what to do, search for Ichigo or wait if he would come himself.  
He grew more and more impatient when his mate still wouldn't step through the trees surrounding them, almost five minutes later.  
Just when he decided to finally go look for him, a mop of orange shone through the darkness.  
Shiro breathed somewhat relieved, but the tenseness in his muscles wouldn't go away.

-/-

Ichigo felt Shiro's nervousness long before he saw his pale figure emerge between the trees.  
He stood in front of the trap door, looking right and left and fidgeting around.  
The orange head came from the other side of the stream.  
He made a light jump to step on a stone that rested almost in the center of the watercourse and with another jump, crossed the waters.  
Shiro had already spotted him and he could watch as relief spread on his expression, though his figure stayed tense.  
Ichigo found out that Shiro thought he might have lost it and readied himself to fight a fight he couldn't win.  
“Ichigo?”  
His mate hesitantly asked, when the orange head came into hearing range.  
The young god looked at the pale, a short smile played over his lips.  
“Ease up Shiro. Everything is fine.”  
Even when Shiro believed him, his instinct didn't seem to agree.  
“It doesn't feel like it. What happened?”

Ichigo's face got hard, he shortly explained.  
“I met Ishida. The _hunters_ made him hunt after me. I was to weak to safe him and he died in my arms.”  
Shiro didn't dare to pry further, even if that didn't explain, where Ichigo's new power boost and the change in his aura came from.  
He was just glad that his mate was alright.  
Furthermore Ichigo emitted the vibe of the strong leader, that led his personal empire and ensured peace for all vampires for five centuries, again.  
His figure brimmed with self-confidence and determination.  
The orangette closed the distance between them.  
He gently caressed Shiro's face.  
“You really don't have to be on edge Shiro. This form is what I always should have been. I didn't understand that this was my own power, until now.”  
For a short moment a pained expression hushed over Ichigo's face.  
“My incompetence is responsible for Ishida's death. I never can change this, but I can make up for it by ending this farce now once and for all.”  
With that, he opened the trapdoor and descended the stairs.

Shiro followed him shortly after, unsure how to handle the situation.  
As he looked at Ichigo's back he thought that, for a moment there was an other person walking in front of him.  
He took a quick peek into Ichigo's mind, and understood.  
The orange head realized that, that what he had shunned as a mind consuming beast, really was Asim's heritage and he embraced it.  
The first slayer had become whole again and so was able to fully utilize the power-up he had become from Lucifer.  
Shiro heard Ichigo take a deep breather, then his footsteps stopped.  
He blinked and cut his contact to his mate.  
Ichigo was very calm, almost cold as he said.  
“Prepare yourself, Shiro. The day after tomorrow I will seek Jugram and lure out Michael.”  
The taller turned around to the pale, his gaze was as cold as his presence.  
“And I will erase them both. You can come with me or.”

Ichigo looked over to Hisana, who had fallen asleep on the sofa, cuddled up to Koori.  
“Go with Lucifer to the place where Gabriel is and take those two with you.”  
His expression got softer again, as he went to the girl and stroked her cheek, before he pushed a strand of her hair out of her face.  
The angel in question didn't say anything to it, but just nodded when Ichigo's eyes met his.  
“I won't leave your side, Ichigo.”  
Shiro answered to his proposals and took a seat in the next free space.  
“I'm sorry. For being an idiot and making all of you suffer over and over again.”  
That came out of the blue from the orangette.  
Ichigo knelt down next to Hisana and watched her for some time before he spoke again.  
“Shiro.”  
“Yes?”  
  
“You could die.”  
“I know.”  
  
“There's a way around it.”  
“I know.”

The orangette turned his gaze to Shiro.  
“Are you willing to share that fate with me?”  
“Yes.”  
“Then come to me and give me your hand.”  
Shiro knelt down next to Ichigo and reached out his right hand.  
Ichigo took it, turned the palm up and so held it in his own.  
The pale waited that Ichigo would do something, like he did before.  
But he just sat there, unmoving and staring at his hand.  
The silence unnerved Shiro.  
Though, he noticed that both of Ichigo's eyes shone with light blue color now.  
Suddenly, Shiro saw that something came out through the skin of his hand.  
In the end a small obsidian splinter rested in the palm of his hand.  
Ichigo took it and moved over to Lucifer.

He took the angels hand, placed the small splinter in it and closed the hand around it.  
“I'm fulfilling my promise to you with that as well.”  
It didn't take Ichigo one minute to finish what ever he had been doing.  
Shiro wasn't sure that anything even changed.  
“Is it done?”  
He wanted to know from Ichigo.  
“Yes. I gave both of you what you wished for.”  
Lucifer seemed to be satisfied.  
Maybe he had felt a change in his body, other than Shiro.  
“I thank you for doing this earlier than promised. If you allow, I have to pack up some things. Surely you want me to take the keys and souls along.”  
“That would be best.”  
Ichigo agreed to it and let the angel go.

The orange head also stood up, gently took Hisana in his arms and carried her over to her room to put her to bed.  
She stirred a bit and mumbled, still half asleep.  
“Why is it so silent? Where have the voices gone?”  
Shiro overheard it and wondered.  
The girl was right, all around them, there was no human or vampire to be sensed.  
It was as if the planet had been wiped clean of life.  
Koori came running after Ichigo, seconds after the weight of the girls head was lifted off her belly.  
Shiro waited for Ichigo to come back and when he saw his beloved turn around the corner, he noticed that his eyes both had regained the hazel brown color they originally have had.  
Ichigo must have read his expression, or maybe picked up his thoughts.  
“That eye before, was defective. Another effect of my imperfection. Now I can freely switch between the sights again. Although when I use Lucifer's powers they automatically do it.”  
“I see.”

Ichigo sat down in the sofa, Shiro changed places to sit next to him.  
“What did you do out there?”  
He asked the orange head after a while.  
Ichigo shortly explained and also told what he thought about the absence of Jugram.  
All the while he watched Shiro closely, who looked at his hands several times, while he opened and closed the several times.  
“Do you still not believe that anything changed?”  
The younger eventually asked the pale.  
“Well, I can't say that I feel much different. The change from vampire, to this form was more noticeable compared to that.”  
“You could test it.”  
Shiro looked shocked at Ichigo, thinking he planned on trying to stab him with anything to prove that he was immortal.  
“I'd rather not?”  
Ichigo let out a short laughter.  
“No not like that.”  
The orange head scooted closer to Shiro, gently took his right arm and turned it , so the underside was facing up.  
He shortly looked at the pale, then the fingernail of the index finger grew and became real pointy.  
Ichigo cut rather deep into Shiro's wrist with it.  
The pale flinched at the pain and shortly tucked his arm back, but Ichigo didn't let go.  
The wound closed as soon as the skin was hurt.  
“See? Instant healing.”  
“That hurt, Ichigo”  
“I'm sorry. But don't worry, whatever happens, we will come out of it alive. Together.”  
“And what do you think will happen?”

Ichigo had no true answer to that, nor would he dare to promise anything he couldn't keep.  
“I will stop Michael, how I don't know, because I don't know how much power he really has. It won't be easy, so much is for sure.”  
Shiro closed his eyes, breathed and gazed at Ichigo again.  
“Then let's hope that we won't blow up the planet while trying.”  
Just then, Ichigo's head jerked up, as if he was gazing at something.  
“So, that's where he went.”  
“What's going on?”  
Ichigo tightened his jaw and frowned.  
“A pair of Angels just came here. They have thousands of souls with them. Michael and Jugram must be on Elysium.”  
“Then Samael is on their side after all?”  
“No, he wouldn't have let his subordinates flee here then.”  
Shiro didn't understand.  
“I fear, that Elysium is done for, Shiro. With every soul that stayed behind. We have to protect the remaining ones, no matter what.”

Chapter 36  
End

 


	38. 37

After Ichigo had made that statement he rushed Shiro to rest, telling that they had to use all the time that was left to prepare themselves, before Jugram and Michael might return.  
So they went to sleep together, but Ichigo couldn't sleep long.  
To much was going on in his head.  
He still didn't fully understand why Michael wanted the Vampires gone so badly.  
They were no threat to humanity as long as they stayed sane and to the angels they were an even less problem, if....  
Ichigo got out of bed and moved to the living area.

As far as he knew, Sataniel, Samael and the former kings of the angels were a different generation from Metatron, Lucifer and Gabriel.  
Those elders were the ones who found earth and led the evolution on it to the point where humans came to be.  
Humans, who resembled them in outer appearance and held a soul that held maybe a quarter of the strength of their own.  
But what purpose did making such a weak life-form serve?  
“Vampire's need blood, since their body doesn't produce it by itself anymore. Blood is an energy source. Angel's, like Lucifer normally eat the golden trees' apples. Then....what if....”  
Then it dawned on Ichigo.  
The angels before Lucifer needed an energy source, similar to their own souls.  
To them, humans must have been the vessels to grow rich energies to consume.  
That also meant, that as soon as a human turned vampire the soul must have become unusable to them.   
That's the reason Michael brought out the slayers.  
And because the number of vampires rose strongly again, and because Ichigo stole his fighters out from his grasp, Michael finally set out to eradicate them himself.  
Ichigo had been running up and down in the room for hours.  
Now that he put together the pieces of the puzzle, he was sure that he couldn't underestimate the angel one bit.  
It was widely possible, that he held the same amount of power as Ichigo himself, maybe more.  
Lucifer couldn't have known, after all more than 6000 years had gone by, since he was cast out by the high angel.

The young god went over to the counter that his sword rested on.  
He took it, drew the blade and said to the cold metal object.  
“I'm sorry my old friend, but I can't have anyone else use you against us.”  
Ichigo dropped down on the sofa and, with his powers, let the black metal become fluid like mercury.  
He rigged the metal, to become something that wasn't naturally found anywhere.

Early in the next morning, Shiro found himself alone in the bed.  
When he came to the living room, he found Ichigo playing around with something, that looked like a black, metallic fluid.  
One time it was a small wavering orb, then it changed forms and somehow solidified.  
Shiro snuck op on Ichigo and embraced him from behind.  
“What are you doing?”  
He startled his partner and the thing he was playing with suddenly split up, rushed to Ichigo's hands and coiled around his thumbs, where it turned into two obsidian black rings.  
“Shiro! You surprised me.”  
“Well, that seems strange. Considering that you always have been a strong sensory type.”  
“I haven't paid attention.”

Shiro noticed, that something was bothering Ichigo.  
“What's going on in your head?”  
Ichigo shook his head.  
“Maybe I just found out the reason for Michael's manhunt after the vampires.”  
“That would be?”  
“That he feeds of souls, much like Juha did, only that vampires seem to be a problem to him.”  
Shiro let go of Ichigo and walked around the sofa to it down next to him.  
“So basically, he's just another self-centered asshole that dooms the fate of others for his own personal well being.”  
“So to say.”  
“Then all the more reason to finally put an end to this shit.”  
Ichigo nodded, breathed deep and looked at Shiro.  
He seemed hesitant to tell what was on his mind.  
“I....never asked what happened to you all....after I was shot.”  
Shiro sighed.  
“Right, you didn't”  
“Will you tell me.”  
The pale thought that now, really was the worst time to ask for something like this.  
If felt like Ichigo was preparing himself for a possible defeat, or even death, though that should be impossible.  
“If you insist.”  
He eventually said.  
“Please.”

Shiro stayed silent for a while, sorting his thoughts and bringing back the memories of the time between that day and the day he eventually had hid bot of them in this hole here.

“After you were shot....”

….Shiro somehow had gotten himself and Ichigo to the mansion.  
Just after he passed the gates, strength left him and he collapsed on the driveway.  
One of his clan members must have spotted him and called for the others to help.  
They brought the pair inside.

While Grimmjow carried Ichigo, Shiro was steadied by Shinji, while the pale told what happened in a panic and completely out of breath.  
Starrk had listened to him and as soon as the word 'shot' fell he ran ahead and prepared one of the rooms as a makeshift operating room.  
Ichigo was brought inside, Starrk called for Shinji to help him, while Grimmjow should have an eye on Shiro.  
The blunette successfully calmed his leader down and together they waited for Starrk to finish.  
At some time Shinji came out and told them it would take Starrk just another few minutes.  
He asked if Shiro was well enough to wait on his own and if yes, Grimmjow and him would hurry an retrieve Ulquiorra's and Rukia's bodies, before the hunters would do anything to them.  
Shiro agreed and asked them to be cautious,

The two came back about half an hour later.  
In the meantime, Starrk had come out with a good and a bad notice.  
He had removed the bullet, but Ichigo's condition stayed dire and he wouldn't wake up.  
Grimmjow asked Shiro, who sat beside his mate's bed, what to do with the corpses.  
With a heavy heart he instructed them to bury them at the hill in the back garden.  
Starrk reassured Shiro, that Ichigo would regain his senses soon and so they waited, while taking care of the orange head.

After his state hadn't changed in two days though, worry began to rise among them.  
The tall vampire pointed out, that they needed special equipment, or else Ichigo's state would deplete rather than improve over time.  
The only place where they could get this equipment though, was the hospital and that laid in enemy territory.  
Shiro's three followers planned to invade the area in the night and steal everything they needed.  
The pale was ordered by them to stay put, since he was to depressed and out of it to be of any help.  
When the three went on their foray, Shiro thought about moving Ichigo to a safer place, since they wouldn't be able to hold the mansion for long anymore.  
The hunters had tried to run them over once already and it was just a question of time, when they would try again.

Hours later an ambulance rushed down the driveway.  
His followers had brought a special bed, clothes, IV stands and bags and several medical monitoring devices.  
Ichigo was prepared and rested in his new bed.  
They treated him for a month, while they secretly build the underground hideout under the storehouses.  
Once it was finished they would move him there, shouldn't he wake up until then.  
But time hadn't been on their side.

They barely had finished the place, when the hunters ran the mansion over.  
In a hurry everything was packed and Ichigo was loaded into the ambulance.  
Grimmjow and Starrk fought off the humans, so that Shinji could get away with the couple.  
On their route though, an ambush was waiting for them already.  
Shinji yelled at Shiro to take over the steer and jumped off the car, to hold off their pursuers.  
Now all alone with his mate Shiro eventually made it to the hideout and struggled to bring the bulky goods down the stairways.  
Before long he somehow managed it though.

With Ichigo safe and secure, Shiro decided to head back and rescue his friends.  
In the area where Shinji had jumped off, he slowly drove through the streets but couldn't find the blonde anywhere.  
He hoped that he had gone back to the mansion and so Shiro accelerated the ambulance.  
Back at the mansion, Shiro found a dead Starrk to Grimmjow's feet and the blue top just got overwhelmed by the humans.  
The pale jumped in between and fought off the hunters.  
Yet he had to say farewell to his followers ad friends in the end.  
He buried them next to Ulquiorra and Rukia and put a tomb for Shinji as well since he guessed that he didn't survive either.....

“...After that I haven't gone back to our home until now.”  
Shiro finished his story and looked at Ichigo who had tears in his eyes.

The orange head blinked several times.  
“They are such idiots....sacrificing themselves for me.”  
“They knew how much you mean to me and you meant just about the same to them.”  
“I wish I could bring them back.”  
Ichigo told with a bitter tone in his voice.

Shiro turned the conversation in an other direction since he had found another pair of those rings on the table top, as he told his tale.  
“What are these?”  
Ichigo lifted his right hand and the ring on his thumb liquefied again.  
After some seconds it turned into a small dagger.  
“I made these from my sword and gave the material some special traits. The rings will only bond to the first person that fed them some of his blood and only that person will be able to manipulate the rings to take any form that he imagines. We will have everything we can imagine with us, while others won't be able to use those against us.  
Shiro was amazed.  
He took the rings from the table.  
“So you made these for me?”

Instead of sleeping Ichigo had invented something, that he never had fathomed was possible.  
“Yes, you only need to give them some of your blood, so that they bond with you.”  
The pale looked at the dagger in Ichigo's hand, knowing, that a shallow cut wouldn't be enough to draw some blood, now that he healed instantly like his mate.  
“When I take it. It will turn into a ring again right?”  
Ichigo nodded.  
“How did you do it? “  
“I took one of the remaining IV needles and filled a small tube with some blood.”  
Shiro face palmed.  
Of course, the stuff still was here.  
Quickly he got the utensils and filled a small tube himself, then let the drawn blood run over the rings.  
They sucked the red fluid up like a sponge.

Shiro picked up the rings and tested them out.  
He reached out to the object with his mind and was taken aback, when he found that they seemed to have a consciousness, almost like a living being.  
The pale called out to them to obey and the rings turned to the formless fluid, like Ichigo's did.  
Shiro thought of a form to give them for a try and his family heirloom rushed through his mind.  
Instantly the metal turned into the dagger with the curvy blade and wooden hilt.  
The older was surprised that this faint thought was enough to serve as a command.  
It even felt like the original.  
“I....have no words for this.”  
With another thought he let them return to their ring form.  
The metal split up and wound around his thumbs.  
The rings fit so perfectly, that Shiro thought he had to cut off his fingers to take them off.

“Ichigo, you are unbelievable.”

Chapter 37  
End


End file.
